Formula 54

[wren08]

Visions of smeared candy red lipstick, torn fishnet and searching, sunken eyes. The scent of an all-nighter: cognac, tobacco flower, dark musk, black rose and clove.

I'm still amazed I have a chance to try this!

Formula 54:

In the imp: Sweet, fruity... more perfumy than your average Bpal. Definitely not for a guy or for the faint of heart.

Wet: It doesn't change much on inital contact with the skin. Still very sweet and feminine but not especially young. This is not a perfume for little girls.

Drying: It's darkening up. I'm getting something a little smoky or resinous that makes this a perfume for a fem-fatalé rather than your sweet Auntie. There's not really a boozy note but you can't imagine a teetotaler wearing it. It's also pretty sexy! It still has that 'perfume powder' note under it all.

Dry: The rose has showed itself to be the underlying 'perfume' smell (the powdery bit was temporary) and the clove is in the back ground now making it deeper and darker... it gives it a 'film noir' feel. On me, the tobacco flower does not smell like a cigarette, it's more floral but keeps the rose from being too 'innocent' and the musk mixes with the clove so I don't get the 'bad musk' note that so often ruins a blend for me.

All in all, this is the kind of perfume I imagine that the 'bad girl' in a 40s Film Noir would wear. It's very glamourous, very elegant and very sexy and you can imagine the wearer betraying you without batting an eye or mussing a single hair. And you might even like it!

[olive]

At first this smells like hairspray, cherry candy, and it's really perfume-y. My only complaint is that the throw and life are disappointingly short, which I presume is the result of sitting on a shelf for four years? It quickly mellows then fades. I'm pretty sure this smells quite different from how it smelled in 2004.

[hellomoonglow]

Weird. It smells very cherry in the imp. When I swiped it on, it actually made my skin feel warm. After 10 mins. or so, the cherry is all gone and I get soap. And my skin seems to eat it, too! O poopy. What a bummer.

 

 

Edited to add: I wanted to also mention that when I put it on I got a grape underlying layer. Depending on which way I twist my wrist, I still get that a bit here and there, poking out from underneath. It's very fleeting and brief.

Edited September 2, 2008 by Shollin
Removed Lab description --Shollin

[tartchef]

A spectacularly generous sniffy from the ever-delectable ifinena

 

In the vial: cherry hairspray

 

On the skin (just a dab): The cherry recedes a bit, allowing a heady blend of rose & dark musk to blossom... I get just a trace of the clove, and the cognac is present in a sweet, boozy undernote...

 

Ultimately, nothing I would ever wear, but it conjures a very vivid memory - the "groupie" girls that would frequent the Goth club I went to as a teenager. Torn fishnets, huge spiky black hair saturated with Stiff Stuff, black lipstick & berry Mad Dog

[zankoku_zen]

Thanks to the lovely tartchef for letting me try this highly sought after! (Incidentally, this wouldn't have been possible if ifinena wasn't so generous to tartchef, so I feel like I should give her a shout out as well!)

 

In the vial: Cherry... and something that smells akin to puke.

 

On wet: GAAAAAAAAH. Really, it smells like cherry cough syrup and someone up hacking up their lunch.

 

20 minutes later: So that went away, thankfully, and it's this smoky cherry smell. Kinda like pipe tobacco

 

An hour later: Perfume, cherry tobacco smoke lingers in the affair. It smells like the end of a party night. A wild party night.

[tarotgirl99]

I brought this one out for New Year's Eve--it's too special for everyday.

 

On me, it's a smokey grey-hued gentle rose-cherry with something bolstering it underneath--the cognac, I think. It's very feminine and even womanly...and not remotely depraved or desperate.

 

It makes me feel sophisticated, though. As if I have mysteries and more layers than Shrek's onion (only I wouldn't know about anything so gauche as onions...or Shrek for that matter).

 

I am not sure if it's age-related, but both throw and wear-length are limited, esp. throw.

[crebbsgirl]

So a very kind forumite sent me a testable sniffy of this. I was ecstatic about her generosity. And very disappointed with how my skin changed this blend. I got a sickeningly sweet rose scent here, which dried down to something much easier on the nose - but getting there was just not worth it for me. The end product was a wonderful cognac/tobacco blend with just a hint of clove, but the overpowering sickly sweet scent just stayed around much too long for my liking. I'm glad I got the chance to try this.

[Monster]

A lovely forum member sent me a sniffie of this with a recent swap. Such a sweetheart!

 

In the vial: Wow...this actually has a "lipstick" smell...mixed with musk and the faintest hint of a dusty rose.

 

Wet: Powdery rose and musk with a smoky dance of tobacco in the background. The cognac only adds a hint of sweetness to this...I'm not getting any clove at all.

 

Dry: Wow! This is so freakin' good! F54 sort of reminds me of a less earthy (boozier) version of Queen of Clubs. It has that same smoky/musky rose feel to it without screaming ROSE on my skin. I never get a strong clove note, just a hint of spiciness. This smells like what I would imagine the inside of a Bordello to smell like. Actually, I think this scent probably should've been called Bordello!

 

Overall: Sex in a bottle! F54 lives up to the hype. This is exactly the sort of scent I would wear all the time. I REALLY hope Beth decides to ressurect this one (and as I recall, it was in a funky-shaped cobalt blue bottle as well...it'd be nice if she used that again). I will hope and dream for the rerelease of this. Love this one! Love love love!

[Ondine]

I amp rose, so this is mainly rose on me, but it's a complex, sexy rose--probably because of the other notes at play, but I can't pick any one out on me. If I compare this to Peacock Queen or another rose scent, F54 is so much darker, deeper, and beautiful. I don't particularly smell clove or lipstick; it just smells like a deep, rich perfume from an earlier era. Beautiful--and hard to get

[sunshinedaisybliss]

 

BIG to ifinena for sending me a tester of this rare beauty! I see she's been generous to many others in this thread, what a lovely fairy she is

 

Wow.. just.. wow. I wish I had been around back in the day when this came out, because it really is drop-dead gorgeous and I would have bought several bottles of it. It has a deep, incense-y feel to it, very mysterious and sexy. The dark musk is the most prominent note for me, it's above all the others with the black rose just flirting around behind it. The clove isn't very strong - it's there, but it's more a sweet clove than the usual hot/spicy type we get in our BPALs. And the cognac.. well.. as expected, it's smutting up the place with its gorgeous warm velvet touch.

 

This is such a perfect combination of notes, everything is beautifully blended and the end result is just gorgeous. I shall treasure these few drops that I have!

[alyssinwonderland]

Wow I'm just ecstatic that I get to review this one! Big big to ender379 on the LJ comm. I got a few drops as a frimp in a swap and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what it was.

 

In the imp: Super rose- hint of candy cherry in the background (ugh..slightly headache inducing nooooo )

 

Wet on skin: Powerful powdery soft incense- it smells exactly like Voodoo Queen! o.O

 

Dry on skin: Gah! Strange fruityness right over top the Voodoo Queen-esque scent. ...The fruit is like a combination of cherry and mango but doesn't seem to want to blend well with the incense..hm..

 

After a bit: Ooh finally blended. Ok dark musk- check. Tobacco flower- check. Black Rose- double check. ugh...twisting a bit too much into the rose.

 

Overall: 2/5 had a good run but just definitely not my kind of scent. So glad I got a chance to test it though!

[sirensea]

Thanks so much, alyssinwonderland, for the chance to try this!

 

My first impression was tobacco, tobacco, tobacco. After a few minutes of dry-down, this seems to be mostly black rose and hairspray. I agree with the other poster that said this has a 'lipstick' sort of smell to it... slightly chemical, but soft and feminine.

 

Nice, but luckily, not for me.