Alone

[Buttercup]

A hectic, frenzied pinpoint in desolation: booming, bleak, and dark with the horror of loneliness and reluctant solitude. Patchouli and cardamom with bright mandarin, labdanum, muguet, red sandalwood, angelica and gardenia.

First up, big to that decanting fool, OriginalWacky

This is only the third Demon I've tried. It is the first one I've has a strong reaction to, so it is the first review.

In the imp : Decaying dirt! Must be the patchouli and a dusty bark scent (sandalwood?) Oh dear, this is awful...

Wet: I am actually trying not to retch. The heavy loam-y scent is oppressive. I've never had such a visceral response to a frickin' perfume before.

Dry: Hey! What's going on here? The heavy patchouli just faded away! I get whiffs of it, but it certainly isn't overbearing. I have a light, sweet spicy-ness emanating from my pores. I feel...exotic.

Later[/bpal]: There is definitely still a floral sweetness, tempered with a touch of cardamom. I can't even believe this is the same stuff.

Final words: Wow! After a rocky start, turns out I love this. I'm totally amazed at what Beth did here. This certainly isn't a scent for everyone, but I'm loving the spicy earthyness combined with floral sweetness. Plus, I now know what labdanum and muguet are. Edited November 23, 2005 by Shollin

[k00kaburra]

In bottle: Wow, this is very unusual. I don't recognize many of the notes. Heavily incensed, but also quite earthy. Hints of a foody spice too. The sandalwood and patchouli are the only notes I'm familar enough to know off the bat. Muguet's a lily tho', isn't it? (Not that I can detect any lily in the blend.)

 

On me: I'm pretty sure the spicness is either the cardamom or the labdanum. It's nice, but it isn't me. The cinnamon-like (although distinctly not cinnamon - man, I make no sense. It's like a green cinnamon, if you can imagine) fragrance wafts up from the earth - so it's cinnamon dirt to my nose. I don't know whether that's a hit with others, but it's a miss with me. I'd do well to leave this blend alone.

[Fefferbella]

Patchouli and Cardamam. As it dries, there are subtle hints of cinnamon. Suprisingly this is VERY foody on my skin.

I smell like the kitchen at an Indian Restaurant. To me, that's a heavenly scent, but Alone is such a strong scent, it was making me CRAVE Chicken Korma

 

Overall, I love this blend. Never in a thousand years did I expect a patchouli blend to make me smell like food, but the Lab never ceases to amaze me!

[sookster]

initial application....dark, wet, patchouli with some cardamom....interesting.......

you really need to let this one morph with your chemistry...after 30 minutes

the spiciness is really amped up...i get just a twinge of the gardenia but it is

not floral as you would expect; a definite earthiness makes this fantastic

.....another stunning creation created by

Beth.......

[cindyrella]

Gee, this was not what was expecting. This is indeed not a floral scents at all, but very foody and spicy. I love that, so that's not a problem, but I really can't detect any of the stated notes.

I'm really confused because what I smell is Bengal! Loads of cinnamon and this smells like Chai tea too!

I really need to try this one on again, maybe it's my chemistry...

 

Edited to add:

I've reapplied this again on another day, and now I get something beneath the Bengal scent. It's still much like Bengal, but there's something earthier beneath it, must be the patchouli. It's truly a beautiful scent. Maybe another bottle for me!

Edited November 30, 2005 by cindyrella

[gdogs]

in the vial, i get cinnamon and dirt. . .hmmm. . .

 

starting out, wet on my skin, this is the darkest, the dankest, patchouli i have ever smelled with cinnamon sprinkled over it. i didn't like it at all. it was just too much.

 

but then it dried down. the patchouli settled. the cinnamon settled. and this wonderful spiciness came through. . . .interestingly, not a foody spicy on me. a sexy spicy. i think the remnants of the dark patchouli kept it from going foody.

 

i couldn't pick out any of the spices. didn't smell like cardamom until it had been on my skin for hours. . . .but it is nice. and it lasts forever.

 

 

plus, i love the concept of a scent called alone.

Edited November 27, 2005 by gdogs

[Capriquarius]

Wow! For some reason this scent was different than I had imagined, but still, it's gorgeous!

 

In the bottle: whoa, this smells like if Bengal and Hamadryad had a child! However, it has a completely different emotion attached to it than some of my other beloved spicy BPAL scents. Warm, almost hot, like bitter tears and rage, not happy-sunny-warm.

 

Wet, on: this smells like pure cinnamon bark! Not sweet like cinnamon candy, more woody. I think this is the combination of cardamom and red sandalwood I am smelling.

 

Drydown: Yum! The woody/spicy smell is balanced by a bit of earthy patchouli and a splash of juicy sweetness that I'm guessing is the mandarin and gardenia?

It is still going strong on my wrist after 8 hours and seems to have just the right amount of throw.

 

This is such a fabulous blend, all the notes just flow seamlessly together and it's difficult to pick them out. As a concept scent, Alone is spot-on. Very beautiful and yet tragic, this one is. I love it so much!!!! Beth is a genius!!!!

[SevenSins]

I really wanted to like this one. But it went the same way Depraved did on me. I think the blend of patchouli with any kind of fruit just doesn't work for me. Either that or my chemistry is changing and I can no longer wear what I love

 

In the bottle: Dark patchouli - which is great! I love patchouli!

 

Wet: Something is not right with this. The patchouli no longer smells like patchouli, it has turned into a sour, dirt-y, vomit-y smell on me. WAY overpowering.

 

Dry-down: It has softened somewhat, but the ugly smell is still there. No spicy, no fruit, no floral, just dirty vomity something that died kinda smell. Really sad, I wanted this one to work!

 

Later: Not bad. A little spicy, but getting here is way too painful.

 

Sadly this one is not a keeper. I'll try again in a different place in my cycle, but I have a feeling menopause is messin' with the old body chemistry. ::sigh::

[SeaMonkey]

Spicy Patchouli.

 

I almost get a cinnamon note when i put it on, but then it dries to a nice spicy patchouli. Must be the cardamom. Its very pretty and seems like a very personal scent. I have to bring my wrist up to my nose to really smell it.

 

Beautiful scent

[sophia_helix]

In the bottle:

 

Oh, yuck. There is a seriously gross top-note in here. I don't even want to sniff more to find any other notes.

 

Wet:

 

Yuuuck. The note is stronger. I can't bring it near my nose. "Vomit-like," as someone said above, is right. I might wash this off...

 

Drydown:

 

But I didn't, I read the reviews and waited like everyone said to, and the note went away in a minute. Thank god.

 

Now there's a lovely spice coming up, cardamom I'm sure (it does smell a bit like chai, and I know cardamom is in chai), over a base of a smoothy, earthy patchouli (not hippie-stank). Except...ouch. Oh, damn, OUCH. Burning burning red tingling ouch. I've never been allergic to an oil before, and this really hurts!

 

I'm sure it's the cardamom, although I didn't have this reaction to Whipporwill. It's probably because I just got out of a hot shower and all my pores are open. Eventually the burning pain fades, although I've still got a pink patch on my poor wrist.

 

Now...mm. This smells exactly like Cost-Plus World Market, one of my favorite stores. The "foody-spice over imported furniture" smell is very comforting. My family always shops there for Christmas, and this actually does feel like a holiday scent. If this had been Rat King instead of Alone, I wouldn't be surprised. No flowers or fruits, however.

 

There's a rising sweetness now, a hint of gardenia, which is taking the edge off the spicy wood, and it's eventually joined by a very faint whiff of mandarin. It's all very subtle and close to my skin, so I really have to smell myself. I can imagine this would be lovely applied to several points all over my body, so it was a soft cloud...but I can't imagine going through the initial allergic-burning again. It also gives me a bit of a headache. I'll give it another try, maybe in my hair or as a room scent.

[ayelienne]

Alone began spicy for me, heavy on the cardamom and did I catch a little bit of cinnamon and orange maybe? As I continued wearing it, the scent of pencil shavings emerged--Alone started to remind me of back-to-school time

 

It's not a particularly sweet scent and it also seems to emanate a bit of prickliness energy that might encourage people to stay away a little bit (hence the Alone-ness?)

 

At any rate, I enjoyed the imp and have decided to pass it around so others can give it a try. If I stumble on another imp in the future, I won't be disappointed.

[BlueStar]

This is a wondrous scent. I got it as a frimp from a very sweet forumite.

 

Wet on Skin: Lovely patchouli and orangey scent. The blend on me smells like a feminine counterpart to Dracul. The spicy cardamom, muguet and Gardenia blend very well together. Snacky!

 

Drydown: Too feminine for me but compliments Dracul well as a femine counter part. I layered with a little Dead Man's Hand today and it smells pretty good, still too chicky though.

Edited December 12, 2005 by BlueStar

[maewitch]

OMG the cardamom is going to kill me, but first it's going to take out my sinuses.

 

Lordy.

 

Beneath the ever-loving spice, this is very sharp and herbal, which I suspect is the angelica. This actually reminds me A LOT of the first few seconds of Blood Moon - perhaps the "forest herbs" are similar. The sharpness mellows into the sandalwood and patchouli, but damn, that cardamom is just too aggressive on my skin and to my nose.

 

I want to say it's a pass, but since I disliked Blood Moon at first before falling completely in love with, I'm going to put this one away and try it in a few months. Maybe the spice will settle and the patchouli and sandalwood will develop stronger backbones.

[ChupaChup]

Even though I like a lot of the notes in Alone, especially patchouli, cardamom and red sandalwood, I wasn't going to try it because of the gardenia. But the lovely tempete sent me decants of all the DimV scents and I was really surprised by Alone. On me, the patchouli is very strong at first, then I get a blast of cinnamon (I don't get cardamom from this at all) that burns my skin, ouch ouch. I never get any of the florals I was afraid of and actually kind of need them or at least something to sweeten this up a bit. I find the patchouli makes it a little too earthy and the sandalwood is too woody.

[terrierhead]

In the imp - woooh, that's strong. It's like a spice war in there. I thought I knew what patchouli smelled like, but maybe not.

 

On skin - Apparently, to my nose cardamom + patchouli = cinnamon, because that's what I get.

 

Drying down - Big Red Gum, in a big wad of mud. Nothing else.

 

Dry - Wow, that's certainly ABC Big Red in mud cake.

 

24 hours later, after bathing and a full day of work - I can still smell the patchouli. I think this might be pleasant if I diluted it. I'll try a touch of it in some unscented lotion and go from there.

[perclexed]

Definitely all about patchouli and the sandalwood. The cardamom combines with something else to make it rather spicy. It reminds me of going for a relaxing walk in the redwood forests of California, and enjoying the fact that I was by myself and at peace. I plunked my bum down on a damp log and just...sat for a while. That sense memory doesn't really jive with the description, but I really like this scent.

[Blueelm]

Ah this comes just in time, as the holidays have left me feeling lonely and sad. Great time for breakups, no?

 

Anyway, I was surprised that Alone smelled so much like cinnamon since that's not mentioned in the notes. This smells like a sort of cookie-like christmas ornament my mother used to make from cinnamon, cloves, and glue. It's a very wearable cinnamon, not like artificial flavorings or unusual chemicals.

 

I pretty much just get cinnamon for a long time, but much later the scent dries out to include a broader spice range, cardamom and something rather grassy.

 

The patchouli is very understated on me and just lends an earthy dry quality. The wood from the Sandalwood becomes pleasant and warm for the drydown. However shortly after this, everything is gone.

 

Leaving you missing the company.

 

At first sniff I was dissapointed, but given time to warm up on my skin this is a good (and very unisex) wood/spice combo.

 

One warning... on my tender neck this turned my skin red at first. The oil may be too volitile for me to wear undiluted. So a word of caution for the tender-fleshed.

[blu°]

Yes, I get the cinnamon, too. I agree that it's probably cardamom combining with something else, but on me it's cinnamon dead on. It's more cinnamoney than anything I've tried that had cinnamon listed as an ingredient.

 

More than pure cinnamon, it's cinnamon sugar, I'm thinking milk rice with cinnamon sugar on top. It's sort of making my stomach turn actually, but that's happening with quite some scents lately to me, especially fiery/spicy ones.

 

It's taking some time to dry and the scent doesn't seem too change so far. I'm not positive that this will change to something I'd want to wear. Guess, I'm not a spice girl. I like spicy food, but I don't really want to smell of it.

 

It seems to lose some of the strong cinnamoney spiciness, but not quite enough for me to enjoy it. I'll just give up on the really spicy scents.

 

That said, it is a nice scent, I can even see how it fits the concept. What somebody said about hot angry tears above seems to catch the scent well. However, it is not watery at all! Very much like angry tears seem to be rather vaporized than liquid sometimes.

It feels despaired. You want to look for something fresh, something bright and uplifting with all that heat around, but there's nothing. Just plain dry suffocating dusty heat, blinding. Being lost in the middle of nowhere, eyes blinded by tears, mind confused and scattered, feeling angry and torn and desperate for a sign of hope, but you won't see any, there's just you alone and those hot tears.

Something like that.

 

It's quite depressing really. Anybody who lacks the experience of major emotional crisis in their lives should probably try this.

 

ETA: Having re-read the other posts, I can't really find the post that said that thing about hot tears, maybe I haven't looked well.

As for the scent: I must have a similarly sharp skin chemistry as MShcherbatskaya has, because this is really quite one-dimensionally pure spice (cardamom that smells like cinnamon) on my skin. I can imagine there being patchouli and sandalwood mixed into that encompassing spicy fiery dryness, but flowers!? fruit!? No way. Not on me, at least.

Edited December 29, 2005 by blu°

[chibent]

Wet: This smells like the puzzles I had when I was little! Not sure what they were made of - seemed to be a cross between wood and cardboard. Each puzzle had 6-12 big pieces that fit into a base/frame made of the same material. Alone smells like those! Plus cinnamon.

 

As it dries: The wooden-cardboard puzzle smell fades, amd the cinnamon increases. I think I can smell patchouli as well - or at least, something that smells like what I think patchouli smells like. I'm not 100% sure that the smell I call "patchouli" is really patchouli. I also notice that my wrist is a bit red where I applied it. I don't feel anything; it does not sting or burn.

 

Later: I still smell cinnamon, but now it's more mellow and almost earthy. Also, this has stayed pretty strong for the past three hours; I don't have to shove my nose into my wrist to smell it.

 

(Oh, and the redness has left my wrist. It never burned or hurt, but I'll probably dilute Alone next time I wear it, just in case.)

 

I like cinnamon and puzzles, so my rating: 4.75/5

[Inanna9]

This is sadly two-dimensional on me. It's like opening a little box made of unfinished wood and finding a stash of red-hots inside. The mandarin and gardenia are nowhere to be found. This one is not going to play nice with me, but that's okay--more $$ to spend on Dreamland when I place my DiMV order next week.

[malabar]

The only BPAL I've smelled where I could pick out the cinnamon and cardamon while sniffing the bottle. This is a Good Thing, as I adore both. The patchouli and sandalwood come on a bit later for me. It reminds me of a less-sweet Red Phoenix.

 

It meshes with my skin beautifully; I guess I'm just a spicy kind of girl.

[hypatia]

I had such a strange Jekyll-and-Hyde (no, make that Hyde-and-Jekyll) experience with this scent. It went like this:

 

First sniff: Dark, spicy, and earthy. If it were a color it would be a really deep brown with a mahogany tinge. So far so good.

 

On, initially: Whoa, that's STRONG. The cardamom comes out in a great big rush. It melds with the patchouli into something that reminds me of molasses -- dark-brown and sweet and earthy and potent. It's like hyped-up Christmas cookies (the cardamom, probably.) Unfortunately, it's too much for my tastes. I love the smell of cardamom, but maybe I don't love it on me, after all. It's clobbering me over the head, and this after a really sparing application.

 

Later: It calms down eventually to a nice sandalwood note, but the initial overwhelming phase lasts for hours.

 

BUT: On a whim, several days later, I added a few drops to my bath. Surprise! Diluting it kind of spread the notes out so I could process them separately. I could actually smell the patchouli, and it smelled wonderful. The aggressive cardamom retreated into a pleasant background spiciness. I went to bed smelling lovely. And the next day there was still a faint, warm, friendly patchouli-scent lingering in my apartment, sweetened a little by the flowers, with the sharp edge taken off.

 

I think it's just super-strong on me for some reason, but it's great at less than full strength. So I'm going to hang onto the bottle and experiment with carrier oils, or maybe mix it into some unscented lotion.

[chapatti]

First whiff: In the bottle, it is absolutely divine, like a sharper Bengal, oh my!

As soon as it hits my skin, though, it's a patchouli party, and... only Patchouli's invited, alas. It's, well, sharp, rasp and woody. The cardamom is also a little noticeable, but, WWF-style, the patchouli's got it in a Jackknife hold and just won't let go

 

Drydown: A couple of hours into it, fortunately, the patchouli relents and mixes equally with the cardamom, creating this deep, sharp, sophisticated woody-oriental, not for the faint of heart but really beautiful. The rest of the notes don't really develop on me, they're more of a soft base for the patchouli/cardamom. Come to think of it, it reminds me quite a bit of Organza Indécence, for what it's worth.

 

Verdict: too strong for me, but if your tastes go towards this end of the perfumery spectrum, you'll love this. It's a glorious scent, really.

 

 

8/10 for artistry, here!

[Voleuse]

On first application this is strong cardamom and earthy patchouli. It's spicy and sweet and very demanding. As it dries, it becomes more bearable, and much earthier. There's a dirt note I didn't detect before, and a bit of dry sandalwood as well. I don't get anything else, however--there are definitely no floral or mandarin notes on my skin.

 

This is a gorgeous blend, dominant and delicious, but it's much too strong for my tastes.

[tinyvulture]

I smell patchouli mixed with licorice, cinnamon, and something sweet and powdery (the labdanum?). Can’t smell the mandarin or sandalwood, and the cardamom is barely noticeable. It kind of reminds me of licorice flavored Necco wafers. Nice.