Al-Shairan

[Deliciousness]

The enemy of God, also named Iblis, He Who Despaired of the Mercy of God. Al-Shairan is the leader of the Jinn, a tempter who whispers false suggestions to men enticing them into evil and perfidious acts, and is the sworn enemy of all of Adam’s children. His scent is fiery, bright and thick with sweet sinfulness: clove, peach and orange with cinnamon, patchouli and dark incense notes.

 

Imp: Sweet cinnamon and spices

 

Wet on skin: Cinnamon with a background of undetermined spices. There is an undercurrent of something that makes me think of sour, or perhaps more along the lines of savory ... like turmeric. It's okay, but a little jarring, since most of the other notes seem to lean toward sweet/foody.

 

Drydown: This little guy is a morpher. He starts out as cinnamon and eastern spices with a slightly "off" note somewhere. It's that "sour" I was talking about in the wet stage. Anyway, that part fades, thankfully, and the sweet spices and a touch of musk peek through, which is really quite nice. But then theres a bit of a chemical note that starts to rear it's ugly head. Again, this chemical scent dies sown again toward the end of wear and I'm left with a soft, warm scent made up predominantly of cinnamon and other, unknown spices.

 

In conclusion: Not a bad scent, but not really my cup of tea. It seems to change so much on my skin ... from one moment of liking, to another moment of "ehh, I think I may need to was this off" ... it sure keeps me busy contemplating the morphing "scentsation" going on my wrist.

 

Looking at the scent description, I didn't smell the orange, peach or patchouli in this blend. I think this would have been so much more awesome orange made an appearance, but alas, my chemistry was all about the cinnamon and clove (and other unknown spices).

[boomtownrat]

I dabbed a tiny amount on the inside of my wrist, so wee that I couldn't see it because my thirsty skin sucked it up immediately. For a couple of minutes I was enveloped in a deliciously cuddly cloud of cinnamon, orange, and spice. Things were looking good for Al-Shairan. I was fixin' to add it to my To Buy list.

 

Then, either my nose broke, or my skin broke, or maybe an unlisted note busted out and shoved every other lovely component of this scent down so it could "shine." I started to detect a hint of poo. You'd think that would be an instant wash-off, wouldn't you? Normally it would, but my brain sometimes thinks it smells something that isn't there. Sometimes that means a migraine is on the way and other times it passes. (TMI: I'm also having hot flashes at the moment and I suspect perimenopause is screwing with my scent chemistry.) Bravely and foolishly, I thought I might just wait it out for a minute in case my brain was misinterpreting the scent.

 

And then Al-Shairan just basically Hulked out and there was no way I could leave it on my skin. It smelled for all the world like somebody was trying to wash poo off some plastic with a huge lather of bar soap. I started to feel like I might vomit. No BPAL has ever flipped so dramatically from gorgeous to nauseating on my skin. It's upsetting that something so wonderful would turn on me like that.

 

It took three or four attempts at washing it different ways (dish soap, olive oil -- you know, like removes like -- and a hand soap chaser) before just that tiny dab of it was gone, because the other distinctive thing about Al-Shairan is that it's probably the strongest scent I've ever tried.

 

Al-Shairan broke my heart, but that initial blast of cinnamon-orange-spice goodness was enough to let me know this must be fabulous on people who don't have my hateful nose and/or skin chemistry.

[lady_pandora]

The enemy of God smells really nice! This starts out orange/clove/cinnamon on me, then morphs to mostly clove/cinnamon but with the peach hanging around as a soft sweet mist to keep the spices from getting out of hand. Then as it wears on, earthy patchouli rises from the deep and grounds it all really nicely. I like this a lot, though it was not very strong in my initial test. Hopefully that was just from transit in the cold, because this smells quite good and I'd love for it to be stronger.

 

Also, I haven't previously sought out peach scents on purpose, but between this and how well Les Bijoux works on me, I have high hopes for Mare Nectaris!

[theseagrows]

got a frimp of this from the lab

 

at first i get something a little...stinky for lack of a better word. maybe it's the patchouli or incense? i'm not sure. it's animalic though, which doesn't make sense but there it is. then the peach and cinnamon. i am not a fan of peach really and this is like a cinammony animalic peach on me. i'm not personally feeling this one and it will have to go to swaps, but i am glad i got to try it all the same.

[Veronica]

This is heavily clove-spiced friuts. Something comes off almost band-aid like. A warm, spiced fruit for fall/winter, but not for me.

[Teamama]

Peach notes aren't working out for me. In the imp, Al-Shairan is spicy and fascinating. On me, it turned into Red-hots and Juicy-Fruit gum. I had a similar experience with Imp (the fragrance.) I think my skin turns BPAL's peach notes into Jell-O.

[Musamea]

In the imp: a bit like Juicy Fruit bubblegum, I definitely get a big whiff of the clove and orange, with a lot of patchouli and a slightly sour note in the background

 

Wet: Patchouli in the front, plus clove/cinnamon, with hints of orange floating around. I'm still getting a teeeeny bit of that sour cat pee note if I sniff closely

 

Initial drydown: orange cloves, with patchouli in the background, darkening things up; peach emerges as soft, dryer sheet type smell

 

Dry: orange and peach predominant, spiced by cloves; I've lost the patchouli and incense (and thankfully also the cat-pee smell); this is what a Juicy Fruit dryer sheet would smell like. I'm pretty meh about it – probably will pass the imp on unless aging makes something interesting happen

[Malaena]

On me this is all Big Red gum. I'm really starting to think cinnamon is my mortal enemy.

[LizziesLuck]

 

This is quite lovely. Wet, it's all cinnamon, all the time.

 

It dries down to a nice spicy fruity blend. On me, it's quite similar to Alice's Evidence, only I like AE better, so I won't get a bottle of this. It's lovely though!

[elka_knits]

clove generally doesn't work on me and I slathered this on this morning without checking notes. Lovely lovely. I didn't know what I was smelling other than what I think of as old school bpal creaminess. Incense resins... what was it? So imagine my surprise to see clove listed.

 

I reapplied and do get a dry-ness I associate with cloves and the scent is foody but I am not getting citrus or peach. In fact with the exception of incense I am getting none of the listed notes. My imp is old... very very old. Maybe that is why.

 

Will have to find a fresh imp somewhere because I have been thinking to add it to my buy list but I suspect all the fruits have worn off.... and the spices have faded as well. Of course it may just be spectacularly blended but I won't know until I try an imp that is less than umpteen years aged.

[doomsday_disco]

In the imp: Cinnamon, clove, and incense, with a bit of earthiness from the patchouli.

 

Wet: The cinnamon and clove notes have taken the center stage. I get a bit of the orange note in the background, but the spices are doing their best to stomp on all of the other notes. It's somewhat reminiscent of Plunder, which also has cinnamon and clove notes.

 

Dry: The spices still dominate the scent, which has a somewhat creamy element to it now. I'm not really getting much else from this. If I inhale really deeply, I can get a hint of the orange and peach notes, but that's about it.

 

Verdict: I'm glad that this one didn't burn my skin, but this is mostly just cinnamon on me. I already have Pickled Imp for when I'm wanting a cinnamon-heavy scent, so I'll be passing this imp on to a friend.

Edited September 8, 2015 by dementia_divine

[freyasfae]

I am not sure why this made it past my first round of testing. (I usually test things twice, and if I don't hate it right away, I save it for another round.) Patchouli and incense are usually pretty awful on me, but once this dries the orange and peach come out more which my skin does like, but still it's mostly patchouli and incense.

[BeyondBad1313]

This is wonderful, this smells like a mixture of cinnamon candies and chai tea. I love the smell in the beginning on my skin, it's spicy and reminds me of some of my favorite tea, but it soon morphs to a nose hair burning cinnamon, for my skin the cinnamon steals the show. Sad because in the imp this one smells really nice.

[sarandipitee]

Wow, this one. It's such a different cinnamon scent for me (and I'm a girl who loves her cinnamon). It's clove and cinnamon first with a very small orange fruit centre. The patch and the incense are very well-behaved, as I can barely detect them.

 

I kinda dig this (and I bet this is GLORIOUS with age) but it's a heavy scent and one that I don't think I'll wear too much. Still, I'm going to hang onto my imp. He'll be perfect for Fall.

[CitrusFiend]

Lab fresh imp, yellow oil. I tested this scent three times because I just couldn't figure it out. It starts out with cinnamon, I think? Then dries to kind of a thin, wispy sweet incense smell. It was better on the second try than the first, more full-bodied with the warmth of the clove and a tiny hint of peach that was absent the first time around. But on the third try, HELLO PATCHOULI! It's so strange how the same imp smelled like three different things on different days. Patchouli and I don't get along at all, so my imp is now on its way to a resin- and smoke-loving friend of mine!

[achildoftime]

I've been looking for a nice fruity clove. This is wonderful. It starts out very distinctly orange and clove with a smidge of incense and cinnamon. After a while it switches to peach and clove, but everything else has virtually left. Fruits almost always make themselves known on me, so I'm impressed there's any complexity. And there is absolutely some nice complexity going on here. Even if it ends up being mostly peach and clove, I can still tell that there's a backbone that my nose just can't solidly identify. I'm a fan.

[cassiejaynebunk]

I like this one a lot. am a sucker for Patchouli and Cinnamon, but i usually hate orange and fruits in general but this.... this is warm and spicy and dry and the orange is like the smell of an orange rind, not orange juice. It’s a little masculine as one would expect but not so much that I wouldn’t wear it.

[milo]

Clove, clove, clove, with cinnamon and a touch of incense. This is nice on a $#*ing cold winter day of -25 in March. Dries down to mostly cinnamon red hots. Nice to try, but not really me.

[Lucchesa]

My Al-Shairan is a well-aged imp with amber-colored oil. At first it's all sweetness and spice; I can't make out the fruit. As it dries down, the almost overbearing sweetness recedes, replaced by peach and orange peel; it smells kind of like one of those pomander balls at this point. An hour or so in it's a spicy incense blend. I've been on a clove kick lately, but this is primarily cinnamon. It does not, however, seem to irritate my skin. A nice holiday scent, but I don't need more than the imp.

[Juliamon]

Part of me doesn't want to post my review yet as I don't know the age of this imp (received from Lucchesa so it could be the same she reviewed) and I have one on the way from the lab, but it's acting so peculiar I feel like I need to get it down anyway.

 

Wet it's spicy, heavy on the clove. The cinnamon is there, as well as a bit of orange peel, but the clove is stealing the show. It balances out a bit more as it dries, but this is where the peculiar part happens: the air around me still smells like the imp, but my skin where I applied it smells like red-hots, with the peach standing in for the sugar. The clove, despite dominating before, is very suddenly completely MIA. And then it begins a strange disappearing act sporadically for the next half-hour, sometimes vanishing entirely, then reappearing a few minutes later making me want candy. Sometimes I think I catch a bit of clove in the air, a dusty patchouli breeze, and then it's right back to candy. My skin certainly seems to think it's candy, as it completely devours it after an hour, leaving only the lightest trace of ash from the burned incense. And I think something went pencil-shavings on me? Where did THAT come from?

 

I adore the scent, but unless the fresh vial from the lab has more staying power it's not gonna be something I use unless I really feel like constantly reapplying.

 

Update from the fresh imp: the cinnamon and clove are MUCH more balanced when fresh, the cinnamon might even be edging out the clove! And the blend stays together longer, without morphing or pulling that strange vanishing act. However, it seems to be weaker than the aged imp and is gone in under an hour if I don't slather. Frustrating. I still will keep one of them around for when autumn returns though.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Juliamon

[ShleepySnorlax]

I love this! I think the peach and patchouli add a beautiful sweetness. There's definitely spiciness from the clove, maybe a bit of cinnamon but not much. No orange comes out on me. Mostly it's this beautiful dark incense. I'm going to need a bottle!

[RedPersimmon]

Cloved oranges and incense.

[garbagewitch]

I was so jazzed when my friend pulled this imp out—Al-Shairan is a scent I've been wanting to try for a good long while, but never managed to make it to the top of my priority list. All the notes are things that I enjoy, if not outright love, and there are no notes I'm inclined to be even a little worried about. What could go wrong???

 

As soon as I put this on, it smells like someone’s garbage can after Christmas. I get the clove and cinnamon and orange, and it should be great, but there's something mingling with them that makes Al-Shairan go seriously wrong on me. I can’t pick out exactly what it is, but it makes the whole scent smell spoiled somehow. It's like someone took incense from Christmas mass, some beautiful wreathes full of cinnamon sticks, and the leftovers from Christmas dinner, then threw them in the same trash bin and left it all to sit for a few days. 💀

 

This is the only scent I’ve tried that’s been so bad I’ve actually had to scrub it off, and though I really want to give it another chance,  just the memory of the scent literally turns my stomach.

[starbrow]

Cloves and incense are two of my favorite notes! Cinnamon I can take or leave, and needless to say, that is the note that dominates here. I compared it with my cinnamon bark essential oil, and it's so similar, Al-Shairan might as well be a single note. There is a touch of something fruity, that splash of orange and peach bringing to mind some of my essential oil blends that are 'spiced cider' or 'harvest spice' themed, but Al-Shairan doesn't actually smell like cider to me, more like an essential oil version of it. 

 

I get zero clove, zero incense, and no noticeable patchouli. If you love cinnamon bark essential oil, this is the scent for you. Personally, I turn to BPAL for more artistic interpretations than what I get from my EO blends, so I won't be needing more of this than my standard one GC imp.

[VetchVesper]

I'm testing it against Inferno, another cinnamon heavy scent, and the cinnamon in this seems tame by comparison.    I'm actually getting something kind of funky smelling.  I think it's peach and maybe the patch?  It's rather animalic.  i'm also getting some nice, mellow clove and some dried orange peel.  And yeah --  I do get a touch of incense.    The scent is very dry and warm.  The cinnamon is present, but doesn't take over.  The scent falls somewhere between sangria without the wine and those fancy orange and cinnamon stick potpourris they sell at Christmas.  The patchouli and incense save it from going total craft store though.  It's actually very pleasant, but not really something I'd wear much.  I'd love it as a room spray though.