Bohun Upas

[joopjoop]

A deceptively tranquil scent: heady fruits, dry bark, and deep green leaves, enveloped by a dark and sinister murk.

 

This is fantastic. It smells like Christmas, or rather - and AMAZINGLY - like a series of Christmasy things; sometimes jumbled together and sometimes one at a time, but all there in the same oil. It's awesome!

 

At first it is all mulled wine and candied fruit and evergreen garlands and, from somewhere I swear, I also get the scent of wax candles. The interplay of dark fruit, soft - very soft - evergreen, and wax lasts a while - I catch wafts of one or the other as I go about my business - then after about 2 hours the fruits fade a bit and it settles for a while into a true soft evergreen (douglas fir or noble fir - no sharp pine or overwhelming cedar here!) which is lovely. Later (about 2 more hours) I swear it smells like a church decorated with evergreen boughs for Christmas Eve mass - evergreen and wooden pews and just the tiniest hint of incense in the background.

 

I'm putting this in a small tin of imps that I have marked 'fall and winter' - so far this is a top contender for a holiday scent, both to wear and use in the house and I will most likely be ordering a bottle in the fall if my bank account can support this growing BPAL habit of mine.

[Coldfire]

Imp: definitely getting deep green faint traces of fruit and something...."dark"
Wet on Me: more dark fruits trying to get all heady on me but bumpin into that green
Drying Down: soap. dark fruity green soap.
Dry: kinda of a fruity soap.

Think I'll put this one on the trade pile!

[ramblingrambler]

Each time I wear this, I am reminded of a jungle scene by Rousseau. I'm not sure how to describe the scent except for heady, dark, and fruity. Utterly delicious, and yes, slightly deceptive.

[galahad]

In the Vial:

Musk and greenery with a touch of fruitiness

On the Skin:

Initially sharp green with a thin musk. The fruit note isn't as lush as expected but just imparts a faint sweetness.

On the Drydown:

The bark note emerges to dry out and tame the green. I'm ending up with a cornflake scent which is, overall, quite faint. Not a winner for me

[achildoftime]

In the vial it was pretty musky and I got a lot of bark, but actually testing it was a bit more fruity. I think I get currants and other really red fruits. It's a little dark and a touch musky, but it has little throw and doesn't really have a truly unique stamp to my nose. Sadly, it's just kind of generically fruity and a little musky on me.

[doomsday_disco]

In the imp: Berries accompanied by green leaves and some dry bark.

 

Wet: The berry note is the strongest note on my skin. I think this is a mix of tart, red berries and sweet, dark ones. The green leaves and bark are lingering in the background. As the scent begins its drydown, the dry bark note becomes stronger, as does the leaf note, and the scent becomes a lot darker.

 

Dry: Tart berries, dry bark, and whatever is representing the dark murk in this blend that smells, unfortunately, like dryer sheets on my skin.

 

Verdict: Berry scents are not my jam, and something in this did not agree with my skin chemistry. Glad I got a chance to try it, though!

[torischroeder9]

In the imp: Herbal green and evergreen and berries. 

 

On my skin:

 

Wet, the evergreen scent dominates, with the fruit or berry note rising to meet it. On the initial drydown, the fruits disappear, and there's the evergreen note along with a dark, slightly powdery musk. As it warms and develops on my skin, I get a spiciness that's akin to the one I get from The Strangler Fig. It's understated and not foody, but it's also pretty intriguing. This also happens to be Bohun Upas's final form on me. 

 

This is a close to skin scent on me. 

 

I'm not sure when I'll find the occasion to wear such a scent on a regular basis, but it's interesting enough that I'm at least going to have to try it one more time. 

 

 

[fairybites]

I was absolutely prepared to hate this scent when my bottle came in the mail yesterday. Sniffing directly from it, it smells like vinegar! My bottle was brand new and never opened from Ajevie, so it couldn't have gotten funky from age or improper storage. I've heard of people suggesting to give the oils some rest after they've been delivered to you, but up until this point none of my collection has smelled that much different than it did from when I sniffed it at the mailbox. I was ready to throw this up for swaps without even trying it out, but here we are. I decided to test it anyway because I was hoping it would morph into something else on my skin, and it definitely did!

 

Wet on skin, pure vinegar just like I smelled in the bottle. But it ended up morphing in about a minute or two into a woodsy, almost incense like scent with no traces of that vinegar smell anywhere. Thankfully, I could pick out some of the fruit notes as it dried down even further and it's actually not as bad as I feared this would be. I'm hoping that little bit of rest after it came to me helped it out a great deal, and I'm sure with more rest and possibly age it might mellow out and be better. 

 

I really have no idea what notes gave this that strong vinegar scent, maybe the heady fruits? As much as the bottle sniff was a disater for me, if you happen to come across an imp or something of this I'd still say take a chance on it. Who knows, maybe it won't smell like vinegar to your nose like it did to mine and maybe it'll morph out on you to something more pleasant than expected. And another good thing is that it ends up having pretty good throw, something that I have found to be a rarity within the BPAL I've tested so far. It's a very strong scent when you first apply it, so definitely don't use a whole lot with this.

 

Still don't think it's quite bottle worthy though, since I tend to gravitate towards the gourmand scents the most and I'm still haunted by that horrid vinegar note.This will potentially be swapped, but I'd like to give it a little bit more time before I do that to see if it works out better. I'm hoping the fruits will come out more since that was the reason I gravitated towards this scent.