Qandisa

[theseagrows]

The Moroccan Goddess of Carnal Desire. Dwelling in fresh-water springs and rivers, she is doom: her embrace drives men mad with mindless lust. Sacrifices are made to the Lady of Lust on the Summer Solstice in the hopes of placating her passions and driving her red-tinged gaze away. Black musk, blackened saffron, lemon peel, and vetiver draped over thick honey.

 

starts off like honeyed lemon, sweet and pleasing, then a bit of murk appears from the vetiver, and then something odd that smells burnt and kind of...musty, for lack of a better word. maybe it's the saffron + vetiver doing it, i'm not sure. it smells like burnt lemon candy on my skin unfortunately.

[roseus]

Sharp, smoky vetiver in the imp almost scares me off completely. But on my skin it's not so bad. Smoky and sweet but with a touch of bright lemon. Fun to try!

[VetchVesper]

Ok. I love this. Looots of dark, smoky vetiver here. Beware if vetiver is not yor thing. It sort of reminds me of The Chapel at first. Then the black musk comes into play, adding it's dark powderiness to a thick, sweet honey. After hours of wear, I'm still getting soft whiffs of smoky black musk and sweet charred incense. Kind of like if you mixed Haunted with The Chapel and poured in a bucket of the darkest honey. Dark, sinister, and gorgeously sexy. Bottle please!

[doomsday_disco]

In the imp: The honey in this definitely does have a thick quality. The black musk and honey stand out to me the most. Right behind that, I get a smoky, BBQ-like vetiver. I only get a bit of the lemon.

 

Wet: The black musk, honey, and vetiver notes are the strongest notes, in that order.

 

Dry: Same. The vetiver is stronger than it was before, but the black musk and honey won't let it overtake them. The lemon rind is present, but not a main player on me. I can smell the blackened saffron if I sniff really closely, but the black musk, honey, and vetiver are so strong! I can sniff this one too much for fear of getting a headache.

 

Verdict: Honeyed black musk and vetiver are definitely not my cup of tea, but if you fans of those notes should give this one a try.

[puellacaerulea]

This one morphs in some surprising ways. In the imp, I don't really get the honey or lemon, but mostly dark musks and something that reads like myrrh to me, even though I know myrrh's not in the listed notes -- the in-the-imp and wet stages remind me a lot of Wicked. As it dries down, the honey and lemon peel come out in a big way -- the end result is a sticky-sweet lemon, with some background vetiver murkiness. Alas, this one's not for me.

[supreme_c0rt]

thicc.

 

Just a solid unit of woman stank. Qandisa is an unapologetic clot of sweet dark musk, swoony nag champa incense and sticky honey. I'm not surprised about that at all, as pretty much all of these notes bust down the door with their sweet and their chewy. The throw on this is huge and formidable. It is wearing me. I emit a fug of 1970s head shop incense, the type of head shop that has never cracked a window. The snake oil vibe of fleshy sex.

 

This is the perfume version of a wide-hipped saunter. The perfume version of an extremely effective fertility statue. This is, I am not ashamed to admit, Too Much Woman for me. I tried to wash it off and it laughed at me. But the right person could dogwalk the world wearing this. 

[biggnerd]

Black musk, light honey, a little saffron, and lemon lightly brightening this.  None of my problem notes go crazy and this isn't a super strong blend.  Lovely and sexy. 

[Lucchesa]

I tried and rejected Qandisa early on in my BPAL journey when I was still afraid of vetiver.  Now that I'm a fan, I definitely wanted to retry this one.  I remembered it being a heavy headshop scent, and I was gratified to see supreme_c0rt mention nag champa because that's exactly what I recollected, although it's not a listed note.  I do like it a whole lot more than I did initially, though it still has a bit too much of a suggestion of nag champa to be something I would wear often. 

 

The black musk and honey initially read like red musk on my skin, so my impression wet was sweet red musk and vetiver.  I never get a lot of lemon peel.  As it settles, the red musk sensation recedes in favor of black musk, honeyed incense and dry earthy saffron against a pretty assertive vetiver, and not the sweet cuddly one of Two Sheep.  So if you are scared of vetiver, this isn't going to change your mind.  It's smoky and sexy, with good throw and wear length.  

[mymymai]

The dark honey here is well blended with the deep musks and bright citrus.  Honey notes and I usually have problems, and while Qandisa toes that line, the other notes are just too lovely to pass up in the  #tournamentofunderdogs #underdogs.

[Lin Swanson]

This is a beautifully contradictory scent. Sweet with honey, bitter with saffron, sexy with musk and a little threatening with smoke - this is the kind of story where you meet a beautiful woman fleeing a terrible fire that has consumed the village, and you go on a quest to save her and help her avenge her family and home, and then a chapter before the end you discover she set the fire herself, deliberately. I am not sure what it says about me that this is one of my all-time favorite BPAL scents.

Big throw, long wear. It stains my skin and clothes golden saffron yellow (easy enough to avoid by wearing black, or tie dye, or, I suppose a scent locket) Slightly dangerous sex appeal. Wear with your eyes open.

[Vaporeon]

I have imps of this that are much stronger on the vetiver/ lemon peel. Thr bottle i recently bought is mostly powdery honey musk, similar to older bottles of womb furie. Nice, but I miss the vetiver.

[Chanteuse87]

Received this as a frimp from the Lab

 

Wet: INCENSE wow. I’ve been in a number of stores that sell crystals and incense and patterned fabrics and knick knacks, frequented by free spirits and this smells exactly like that in a very overwhelming way. 
 

Dry: thankfully it calms down quickly — the lemon appears for just a moment, but it settles into a thick, dark, spiced incensey  honey. It’s sweet for my taste, my skin already turns everything to syrup. We’ll see how it ages — I think I won’t wear it often, but it definitely evokes a mood. 

[Manic Pixie Dream Ghoul]

In the bottle this is gnarly - a sweet, thick, almost medicinal kind of smell. I was afraid to put it on because it smelled so intense. What a morph though. The green plant-y smells in this (vetiver maybe?) mixed with the heady sweetness give the impression of humidity, hothouses, carnivorous plants. It has that bitter smell of tropical growth mixed with the stickiness of a flytrap, but at the same time the musk comes through with this kind of animal sexiness. This is your Poison Ivy cosplay smell for sure.

 

This is going to sound odd, but despite the completely contradictory description I just gave, this one reminds me of Arcana. They both have this full, rounded scent where the sharp herbaceous plant smells blend together to create something more rich and thick and incense-like. The dry down trends more toward incense over time. It's feminine, not in a girly way, but in a thick, musky, dark kind of way. I don't think I suit it, but I'd like to meet the person who does.

[IMissIambe]

It's been forever since I've posted on this site. I don't even have my old email address anymore and had to get a new email address. Let's see...

 

In the frimp I have, it smells very much like incense. It's smoky, but there's also the sweetness of the honey balancing it out. Not sure what the saffron is supposed to smell like because I've always been too broke to cook with real saffron, but there's a nice spicy kick to it that might be the saffron. Very strong, though; I hope it dries down a little milder.

 

After it has been on my skin for an hour, it smells exactly as I had hoped: a pleasant incense-like blend of sweet, spicy, and just a little bit smoky. The vetiver keeps it grounded; my skin tends to straight up devour scents without base notes. I would love a bottle of this.

[Tungerine]

This is a surprise favourite that changed my mind about honey, which I used to think I always disliked. I'd never have tried it if I hadn't received a frimp. Lemon often goes wrong on me, and usually I find the honey note is cloying without the richness and slight sharpness of real honey. But here the honey combines with the black musk and lemon peel to create something much closer to real honey, although still much sweeter. The black musk doesn't just enrich the honey though, it's still there as a note in its own right. The saffron is subtle, but it adds some complexity, and the smoky vetiver gives it a hint of incense. The lemon peel quickly disappears but otherwise it changes very slowly. After several hours only the black musk and honey remain. It's dark, sweet, and sensual. It could easily be a scent for driving men mad! For me, though, it's more warm and comforting.

 

It's yellow because of the saffron, so take care where you apply it because it might show on your skin or stain fabric. I find that I need to use quite a lot.

 

Much as I love it (it might even be in my top 10), it's not actually something that I'm ever likely to wear out, it's too feminine and not my style. It's more a scent for home. For me alone. I've been reaching for the imp a lot and I'll need a bottle.