Bilquis

[London]

Honey, myrrh, lily of the valley, rose otto, fig leaf, almond, ambrette, red apple, and warm musk.

It smells like apple pie in the bottle.

On me it smells like eating a spiced up apple almond tart in a rose garden. This is perfect!

After it dries it stays about the same as when I first put it on. It's not really foody because of the spice and floral..but the apple is there.

[patina]

oh wow.

 

I don't smell apples right off. Not crisp ones at least. What I do smell is pastry, honey, reisens, and assertive florals that blend into the musk. As the scent sits on my wrist for a while, the florals die down, but they're still noticable. It's lily of the valley, which is much softer and less soapy than the standard lily.

 

It smells red, if that makes any sense. Cooked, red apples and honey and glazed pastries, and golden liquid amber, and musk and bold lily.

 

This is good and I don't normally like pastry scents. Best for people with outgoing personalities who like being seductive. I don't know if I'd personally wear it for fear of overwhelming people, but it is good to sniff.

Edited November 13, 2010 by patina

[Nadirah]

I got a aged bottle in a swap. Warm Musk and Almond are bold and the first thing I notice once this one hits my skin. This smells like a darker version of Queen of Sheba, imagine that? The honey is not giving me a headache and I love a blend with fig leaf in it. The fig leaf gives it some green and spice. The throw is great, this one is strong! I will be keeping this bottle and collecting more once it gets low.

[Gin]

I get lily, rose, and honey (powder) from Bilquis. Too floral for me.

[Amaranthus]

Bilquis smells like a straight forward blend of honey, almonds, apple, fig, and myrrh. The warm musk comes out on the dry down. This evokes ox blood colored bedsheets in my mind, an excellent representation of the character Bilquis.

 

My bottle is somewhat aged. I liked this perfume better when it was fresh. It reminded me of a more lascivious, less tropical version of Eden from the Wanderlust line.

The fresh version of this perfume had all of the sultriness of the aged scent, but with a contrasting brightness of red apple.

 

The aged perfume is still very nice, a thick honeyed almond myrrh scent. I smell the rose otto more in the aged perfume. There is still a scent of apple, but it is more like the scent of apple perfume left on a pillowcase, rather than the bright scent of fruit.

 

I like this one a lot and I am considering ordering more of it.

[The Planet Queen]

This is the first bottle I bought. I got it without knowing what it would smell like just by ingredients. In the bottle it's strong but pleasing, wet it's still strong but smells very good cherry/almond. The dry down is complex with floral notes coming through. I love it. It was staying power also with quite a throw. I'm going to be on the lookout for a second bottle.

[mymymai]

ITI: I get ambrette seed, musk, slightly Honey Bucket honey, and touches of fig and apple.

 

Wet: The musk and almond with the honey give off a warm and pleasant impression, like walking into a home when someone is doing his or her holiday baking. I can also still pick up with fig and faint apple. I'm surprised the honey is behaving as well as it is right now on my skin.

 

Dry: I get honey, apple, lily of the valley (which make this a little more complex), musk, and fig. It's much, much better than I had anticipated when I smelled it in the imp.

[LizziesLuck]

Initially I get Myrrh and Honey. Some Almond. Mmm.

 

 

This is really lovely, I can't wait to do a full day test. Sweet (but not too sweet) honey and Myrrh. I don't get much of the other notes, but I'm ok with that because it's sooo good!

 

 

ETA: Just got a fresh decant of this to try. The previous one I had was different every time I tried it, which was infuriating - sometimes I loved it, often I hated it.

 

 

Wet: Tons of rose and apple that I don't remember getting any of in my aged decant. It's actually quite fresh and lovely though. I rarely like apple scents, but I'm digging this.

 

 

Dry: Really soft, honey with a bit of rose and apple. Interesting how different this is than any of the times I tried that other tester I had. I think I'll age it and see what happens.

Edited June 5, 2017 by LizziesLuck

[Teamama]

Bilquis is sweet, and rich, and fine. I'm amazed by how good this blend makes me feel.

 

I don't experience a lot of changes over time, and Bilquis lasts for hours. I smell honeyed rose and lily of the valley, with the apples, almond, ambrette, and myrrh as a framework. It's sweet like baklava, if baklava could be stuffed with fresh flowers.

 

Love X 1000! Maximum rating. Can't be improved.

[Casablanca]

This goes on differently than I expected. There's something quite pink in how this smells on me in the first moments after applying it -- is it from the rose otto? The apple? The way the lily of the valley combines with the honey, rose, and apple? I can't tell, but somehow the very first impression reminds me of pink cotton candy. It isn't cotton candy, being too honeyed and rich and other things, but I think of it, at first...

But Bilquis quickly settles into a warm, honey-rose, pinkish-red-scented musk with notes of fig and almond. Throw is low after a half hour. At a half hour, an inch from my skin, honey and almond dominate. When I sniff right against the skin, rose and musk are stronger.

Four hours later, the honey and musk take on the "honey-dusted skin" effect from Sara Pezzini, but tinged with pinkish rose.

Very pretty!

 

Time to slather on some more.

[Kay Torres]

So I finally got to try Bilquis today. I'm kicking myself for not buying it sooner. Before I tried it, I honestly had no idea how it was actually going to play out because every single note listed is a note that will dominate a blend on me.

 

In the bottle: Smells pretty innocuous, I'm only picking up the almond and the apple.

 

Wet: Bilquis was gross here, and I started to feel nauseated. I smelled everything to the 10th power. Screeching high pitched apple, bitter, dry almond, a weird dirty nuttiness from ambrette, honey that turned powdery, overblown rose, etc., etc...

 

Dry: This calmed down almost immediately to the sexiest rose I've ever smelled. It's lush, sweet and musky with the tiniest hint of nutty goodness. This is your skin after you applied perfume and then spent some time getting to know someone in the biblical sense. You know all that prose that compares ladybits to flowers? This is that concept in a bottle. Needless to say, I'm in love.

 

I'll update as to longevity, but Bilquis is going out with me tonight because I've found my Salome rose...

 

ETA** Bilquis lasts forever! Unfortunately, I have to go back to my search for the perfect rose because I found that after roughly three hours, the rose wears away and this turns into almond puff pastry. And the almond puff pastry is what lasts... :/

 

Reapplying this every three hours isn't practical either, it's got an insane amount of throw. Way too much to be adding more... Guys really dig it in all stages tho, so there's that.

Edited September 17, 2016 by SunsetKay

[joopjoop]

I got ahold of a decant from the forums - really excited, I've wanted to try this one for a long time.

 

And I'm not disappointed. I have to agree with the general review consensus - Bilquis is just beautiful.

 

There was a moment about 15 minutes after I put it on where it got a little funky on my skin and I may or may not have yelled "Myyyyyyrrrhhh!!!" aloud in my best Wrath of Khan voice, but fortunately the moment passed and now I just want to inhale my arm. Once it settles down It's floral and apple and the most gorgeous honey and spices. Later the musk and ambrette emerge a little more, giving more depth to the scent.

 

It reminds me somewhat of Osun, which I also love. I was planning on getting a 5ml of Osun in my next order, but now I'm leaning towards snapping up a bottle of this beauty instead.

[maudlinrose]

This is amazing, and aged it is more amazing. When it was fresh, the almond was too overpowering, the sweetness was cloying and there was too much going on, but with a few years Bilquis settled into something warm and richly sweet and kissed by subtle complexity - absolute love.

[ramblingrambler]

"Apple pie in a rose garden" is dead on with this.

 

On application, it's cooked (not crisp) apple filling with flakey, doughy almond crust, and sharpened with low, background floral. As it dries, the floral comes forward and appears as a rose, slightly wilted but still supple and fresh. About twenty minutes in and the lily of the valley appears, making it even softer, rounder, and less foodie (but the honey, apple, and fig never really disappear).

 

It stays with me for about six hours and wafts about, sometimes more foodie, sometimes more floral, and sometimes just a pleasant melange of uninterrupted notes mingling together. Lovely.

[galahad]

In the Vial:

Surprisingly strong apple with some rose and honey

On the Skin:

Hmm...the almond is quite nutty for a change. Almond, apple and honey to start. The rose is subtle on the sking and the lily of the valley provides some sweet opulence.

On the Drydown:

This is a fascinating and very different scent for me. Lily of the Valley and rose can be iffy on my skin but this dries down to a warm, musky honey rose. Still, not a bottle for me though.

[roseus]

In the imp: crisp bright apple

 

Wet: spicy apple, with a green leafy-ness and honey

 

Dry: Very well blended. Warm honeyed apple muskiness with a faint rosiness and spice. Myrrh is probably grounding it and giving it depth. This is the first scent my guy has actively shown interest in and I love it as well. The almond didn't go cherry on me in this one, but it isn't pulling the blend into baked goods territory either. My only regret is not trying this one sooner!

[dramedy65]

Aged, old school Bilquis.

 

Wet: Interesting. Huh. I have no idea what this smells like. These are mostly new notes for me. Definitely sweet - getting that honey note. Something deeper, maybe the myrrh. No Apple.

 

Dry: Sweet, medium throw. Spiced honey, but not in a headache-y sort of way. Not getting any apple at all. Maybe it will come out later, but I do like this right now.

 

Likely a keep but rare use.

[doomsday_disco]

In the bottle, I smell the honey, almond, apple, musk, and a whiff of the floral notes.

On me, the almond and honey are front and center, followed by the apple, and they're backed by the warm musk. Then the lily joins the stage. The rose otto is present, but pretty tame for a rose, and after about an hour, I start to get the myrrh. The almond has stuck around so far, and I'm surprised, as it usually is pretty fleeting after the initial blast of it. This makes me think of an apple-y Bastet with lily and rose instead of lotus. It's definitely in the same scent family. After several hours, the almond is still present, and it smells like almond-tinged honeyed flowers (the lily and rose are more prominent now, but smooth) and a much softer apple note on a bed of warm musk and myrrh.

 

Another Gaiman scent win! I am happy to have a bottle.

 

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by doomsday_disco

[Miss Landau]

I’m getting mostly apple from this, with a bit of musk and almond. It’s very warm and sumptuous, and has good length on me. 

[SophieCedar]

Ok well...i'm reviewing this with what I thought I smelled before looking up notes...

I smelled musk and cucumber rind, wet. Must have been the lily of the valley and honey? Drydown is a warm musk, notes of dried rose and almond and gummy myrrh too. Its lovely, feminine, bold, but quiet.

[torischroeder9]

In the decant: Honey and myrrh, which makes it really deep and rich, followed by rose otto.

 

On my skin:

 

Wet, the rose and lily jump to the top of the scent, though they're immediately followed by something rich and spicy. It might be the warm musk, but it's not terribly unlike spiciness I often get in scents with fig leaf as a note. As it dries, the spiciness plays up in the scent's through, though it's still quite a lot of rose close to my skin.

 

Um.Though. The rose gets bigger and bigger the longer I let it sit on my skin. It is a beautifully overwhelming, intoxicating scent and a superb representation of its inspiration. Ultimately, however, I do not need this much strong, heady honey-rose.

Edited February 12, 2022 by torischroeder9