Pride

[Czarina]

Vanity in extremis. The scent of rabid hauteur: Moroccan rose and narcissus.

Can smell the rose, can't smell the narcissus. Not very interesting on me, sorry. Bleah.

Adding Bonfire Night to it, now that was interesting. Burnt roses.

[Limelight]

My review is the opposite of modernsaints' review. For me, it starts rosey, and then the narcissus starts hogging it up. There's something in this that takes a sour turn.

 

5 minutes later - Nope. Not getting any better, worse actually. More like the stems you clipped off and threw away than the blossoms. Wash off!!!

[starwild]

I got this as a frimp and seem to love it more every time I wear it. It's roses, soft and sweet but with the promise of thorns underneath. There's not much depth to it, it's simply rose-rose-rose, but it's not overpowering or sickly sweet on me either.

[CrazyPretzel]

The rose in this blend is overpowering the narcissus - and sadly, it seems to be of a variety that smells faintly bitter on me. It's lovely in the imp but will have to find another home.

[Delirium1009]

In bottle/imp: Slightly lemony rose and subtle white florals.

 

Immediately on skin: As soon as I put this on my skin, this scent backed off big time… the lemony twist went away and it settled into a soft mix of rose and drier, tangy white florals.

 

After a little while: The blend has really livened up on my skin and gotten rather strong. The rose and narcissus are both strong, but well-balanced. They don’t really mix together, but they blend a little.

 

Overall Impressions: This is a bit strong, and very floral. It would be a really nice spring scent for sure, and is very feminine. It feels almost “yellow” to me and the narcissus has an almost citrusy feel. Very pretty, and very wearable but not for me.

[fairnymph]

In the bottle: Light golden oil. Sharp and soapy rose.

 

Wet: Same, but bit fresher, almost citrusy. However, exceedingly, nose-itchingly soapy. I presume that is the narcissus as I have never had any rose go soapy on me. Still rose-heavy on the whole.

 

Dry: Whoa. That sort of fresh citrusy note has totally amped, it's sort of wet and green too, and still rather sharply soapy. Rose is still going strong, but this narcissus (I presume) is almost as strong, though the throw is more limited.

 

Later: Narcissus is a strange flower (this is my first experience with it). I really like the citrusy and green aspects, but the acrid and soapy ones ruin it for me, and it is NOT a mild floral. Like rose, appropriately haughty.

 

Summary: It's slightly soapy very strong rose from a distance, but within a few inches the sharp, sort of acidic and heady, citrusy and VERY soapy narcissus is much more apparent. Overall, the rose dominates, but the narcissus and I are not getting along. A very simple blend with very strong throw and lasting power, requiring scrubbing.

Edited May 13, 2008 by fairnymph

[filigree_shadow]

Well, I had thought this might be a good one because I'm starting to like rose scents. I smelled a little bit of rose at first, and I thought it had some promise, but then this weird band-aid scent took over. That's freaky. Usually narcissus is kind to me. Perhaps my skin is picky about what narcissus goes with. It does seem to be telling me pretty clearly that rose is not the thing narcissus goes with. It's too bad, really, because I can tell that I like the rose in this. When it's fully dry it's mostly a pretty rose, but that wet band-aid stage is not something I'd want to go through more than once.

[mhickle]

I could smell it as soon as I opened the box. Something was shouting pretty loudly in there: "ROSE!"

 

Ugh, I thought. But I sniffed all the frimps anyway, and as soon as I got to Pride, I knew where all the flowery shouting was coming from. Even just a sniff stayed with me for hours, stuck to my fingertips like glue. This went as far away from my other stuff as possible, ready to be swapped at the earliest chance.

 

Oh, rose, you crazy note. Soapy and, on me, amped up like all get out.

 

I just don't. do. rose.

[AthenaRose]

Another frimp from the lab that i'm really happy with!

 

BPAL roses are great.

 

Pride is a rich rose. Stronger and more fragrant than Wanton which is a more watery tender rose. I love them both, but i think i like this one a little bit more.

 

4/5

[hlinspjalda]

In the vial: Mostly sweet rose, but with some tartness.

 

Wet: Yep, rose and narcissus. The narcissus is slowly ramping, but so far it's avoided hitting the headache-inducing note.

 

Half an hour: Serious rose, and the narcissus is less noticeable than before. The rose has quite a throw; I could smell it all over the place while I was washing dishes just now.

 

Two hours: Ah, now it's better blended. The rose has calmed down some, and the narcissus doesn't hurt like I feared it would.

 

Three and a half hours: Unremarkable floral. Better than I expected it would be, though. Narcissus is something I never thought of wearing as a perfume!

[anguissette]

Another one that smelled pretty much exactly like rosewater on me ... nice smell, but that's why I keep a quart of rosewater around. Swapping it to a rose lover whose skin hopefully allows other notes to peek through every once in a while.

[melrose]

In imp: ROSE! and a hint of something herbal.

 

On, wet: Normally my skin amps rose, which is fine with me. This time, the narcissus is beating the rose into submission.

 

Near drydown: Sharp, sweet, and herbal, narcissus appears to love me, but the feeling is not mutual.

 

Far drydown: Very faint. Rose and narcissus are playing nicely now, but it's too sweet for me.

[skepticism]

Mmm, a sharp, slightly sour rose is what I'm smelling. I haven't been too lucky with Beth's rose notes, but I think Moroccan rose is heavenly coupled with the tangy note from the narcissus. I like it as a sniffie, probably in my oil burner, but the sour/citrusy scent is a little too overpowering to be worn. I think it needs to be calmed down a bit, but I suppose that would be subduing the essence of Pride.

 

ETA: Drydown proved me wrong the second time around: too much sweet, powdery rose left behind. Boo.

Edited September 4, 2008 by skepticism

[taramarie]

On me, Pride is rose (more tea rose than anything else) tempered with narcissus. This is so lovely. I wish the narcissus were stronger, but maybe age will help that.

[auburnette]

Pride

 

In imp, wet: Whoa, rose.

 

On skin, wet: Rose, rose, rose!

 

(I should mention at this point that my imp was acquired from a forum sale and therefore I don't know how old it is).

 

On skin, dry: I want some Turkish Delight.

 

Hmm, I quite like this (although I'm not getting any narcissus from it), but I feel like I've already found my One True Rose Scent (Hope, which smells *even more* like Turkish Delight, and I can't really say that I want another rose scent when I'm not that much of a fan. I can appreciate this, definitely, but I don't feel the need to keep it.

[milo]

Yeesh, I'm not very good at detecting rose until I see the description, and there it is, so obvious. This is a very green, spring-like floral to me, like you'd walk into a huge greenhouse, is the feeling that I get. Still, it is really not for me, just too florally for my tastes.

[MCS4096]

In the Imp: Mmmm.. this is what I think of when I think of roses. A full lush rose, wet with a wine quality to it.

 

Wet: Getting the first hint of the narcissus.. it gives the rose a little greenness

 

Dry: I get the lemony twist someone else mentioned.. it's almost a little sour. I think I liked it better right out of the imp.. I smells a bit like cleaning product now, a little chemically.

[Suu4LC]

In the imp this is...ROSE! A bit sweet. It's nice, but rose heavy blends tend to go sour on me. With bpal you never know though, so let's see how it is on my skin.

 

Hmph, yeah, as soon as it gets on my skin it starts to go a little off. Not horribly, just a teensy bit funky and sour. This blend isn't too interesting to me. Just...rose.

 

As it dries, there is a green-ness that comes out that I didn't notice in the imp. Less sweet, more green.

 

Overall, this was just a meh rose scent on me. Nothing special. I would say try it out if you love rose, but if you're not a rose fan, I don't think this blend will convert you.

[donnatron]

Imp: For some reason, in the imp this smells like honeysuckle. In fact, I sincerely believed it was honeysuckle until I looked up the notes.

 

Wet: It gets rosy. Intensely rosy. SRSLY rosy. I don't even smell the narcissus and usually that's pretty noticeable on me.

 

Dry: Pink rose, through and through. I like it. It's a bit like Two, Five and Seven but without the sour grass quality.

 

Throw: Mild.

 

Overall: A fun, random scent. I think it's dressy and quite classical and probably wouldn't reach for it for every day wear but it's a cute scent and very feminine.

[obsidienne]

Pride comes off as a very simple but perfumey floral to me. I can really smell the rose and narcissus, but the narcissus smells almost fake, and similar to lotus in an odd way, complete with the sort of bandaid-ish note that lotus gives me when I sniff my skin directly. It also has a spicy-soapy undertone. Overall, Pride is not particularly right for me.

 

Oh, edited to add: very good throw!

Edited July 4, 2009 by obsidienne

[hkhm]

imp: deep, dark roses.

 

wet: as soapy rose goes on my skin, this is darker and sexier than usual... but still soapy.

 

dry: dark, mysterious, soapy rose.

[ephemera]

This blend is all rose, all the time. As a child my great-aunt wore a perfume called Tea Rose, and this smells so exactly like it that I half expect to see her coming in the room. Unfortunately, I don't care for the scent except in the actual flower, and thanks to my great-aunt I associate this with the elderly.

[ClareN]

I like BPAL's narcissus, but the rose dominates here. I love rose too, but there's one rose note BPAL uses that usually goes sharp or sour on my skin. That's what's happening here. I also feel like the perfume is missing a heavier base note, something to ground these high-pitched floral top notes.

 

When I don't sniff my wrist up close, though, I don't get the sharp/sour thing - it reaches my nose as a more pure floral. Like Rose Cross, this should work better as a room scent than as perfume. I may keep it for that purpose, since I like the scent itself - just not the way it behaves on my skin.

[Seismogenic]

Though today has been more of a sloth day in terms of how quickly I've been getting my work done, I have no such oil, and decided that it would be a good day to test my frimp of Pride instead. Perhaps I will take pride in the fact that, despite my slacktacular mood, I still did get all of my work done!

 

In the imp: Schwoah! Intense rose!

 

Wet on skin: Rose rose rose rose and some other lighter waterier floral that I assume is narcissus, since it's the only other note listed.

 

Drydown: Freshly dry, the narcissus is getting stronger and becoming more distinct, though it's still playing second chair to the zomgintense rose. An hour later, it's about the same - intense rose with a vocal narcissus sidekick.

 

Five hours later: The overall intensity has faded, but there's still plenty of rose left to go around, and the narcissus isn't gone, either.

 

End of the day: Oddly, with all that rose going on earlier, it's the narcissus and only the narcissus that I can smell now.

 

Overall: This is an intense in-your-face floral that is clearly quite proud to be just that. It's loud, it calls attention to itself, and it makes no apologies for being what it is. And it's absolutely haughty - the rose in this is clearly the expensive kind used to impress people, and narcissus, well, narcissism! Pride is definitely another BPAL that fully fits its inspiration. However, I am absolutely not an intense florals kind of guy, and I worry that if I ever say I'm proud of something I've done, that'll immediately come across as arrogance, so this is not the oil for me.

[naeelah]

This is just what it says: rose and narcissus. Maybe it's just because I don't know what narcissus smells like on its own, but I don't really register this as anything other than a straight rose blend. It just has an airy edge to it, undoubtedly the narcissus.

 

The rose in this is a rich red one, but compared to other rose blends, such as Peacock Queen, this is not nearly as deep and voluptuous. If she was a bit too haughty for you, or if you just want something a bit lighter and more spring-like, then I think you might like Pride.

 

This actually reminds me a lot of Somnus. Somnus definitely has either a rose or rose geranium note, and if you stripped out the lavender, I think the remaining floral blend would be similar to this. The main difference is that as this dries, it becomes a little bit deeper and richer.