Fire Cock

[lizabelle]

A new years blessing! Peony, Chinas national flower, with bamboo for flexibility, plum blossom for perseverance, courage, and hope, tangerine for wealth, orange for happiness, lychee for household peace, pine resin for constancy, golden kumquat for prosperity, King mandarin for good fortune, cypress for longevity, sticky rice cakes for abundance and hopes for a rich, sweet life, and a splash of blazing red of dragons blood to help you scare away the rampaging Nian.

Oh no, am I first? I'll try to do it justice.

I had to get this one because I'm a rooster. It starts out with a very loud peony, and I think it's blending in with all the fruit because it's almost sour. I don't get actual orange (for whatever reason, BPAL's oranges just disappear on me) but I could see the lychee and especially the kumquat (and maybe even the dragon's blood?) amplifying the sharp fruitiness of a fresh, or even slightly past its prime, flower. During this phase there's also a sticky rice/rice milk note far in the background, and I wish it was more prominent for balance's sake and because it's really nice and true-to-life. After about an hour it tones down into the soft, sweet peony note I love so much from The Dormouse, with a woody variation of cypress underneath. There's still a touch of rice in this phase, too, but it's sweeter and drier. The drydown is powdery and a bit soapy, but not offensively so in either case.

While I do like it, I think I'll give it some time to age before I really start wearing it and see if that mellows out some of the starting sharpness. I'll update this review once I do!

[Little Bird]

All of the New Year's blends smell very similar to me, like a soapy citrus-melon fragrance. Fire Cock doesn't list melon, but I get an undertone that reminds me of honeydew. Mostly this is a tart, sharp orange citrus with soapy dryer sheets. I was hoping that this would have a stronger rice cake smell, but I don't get any rice cake at all, or any dragon's blood or plum blossom. Lots of the orange tones, but they're too sharp and soapy for my tastes.

ETA: Tried this again, half a year later, and I don't get the orange notes much anymore. Now it's more of a pulpy, green, wet bamboo, tart and creamy plum blossom, honeydew melon, and soapy, dry, laundry dryer sheets.

 

This always turn out too soapy for me, sadly

Edited August 28, 2017 by Little Bird

[gloame]

This goes rather bubblegum on me when wet, which I suspect is the peony and kumquat together (because Tweedledee went bubblegum on me too and it had kumquat, but it's not entirely a citrus bubblegum). As it dries down, it's much less gummy, but I think it could do with some ageing to firm it up a bit more.

[zankoku_zen]

Honeydew melon, peony, and a touch of citrus and bamboo. All of the new year blends have been similar to my nose, but this one is definitely more a of a fruity peony blend than the others. I'm really amping up the peony, with a watery bamboo on the drydown. Good throw and wear length.

[degaussingcrown]

On me, this is almost a single note peony. At the very beginning I can get some of the fruitiness other people have described, but not after drydown. I'm a fan of peony so I'll definitely be keeping my decant but not sure if I'll be needing a full bottle.

[joopjoop]

Well the reviews for this one have been rather lackluster, but I wanted to try a new year's blend so when I had a chance to order a decant of Fire Cock, I went for it.

 

It's wonderful. It is really well blended and smells soft and pretty. It also smells pretty much like Chinese New Year to me. Spot on in fact.

 

If pressed, I would say that the fruit notes, particularly the tangerine, are most noticeable at first, along with the peony and bamboo. The peony is the most distinct note throughout, but the bamboo is what is really making this scent for me as it acts sort of like the canvas for the other notes. The only other note I get distinctly is the sticky rice cakes, it is very subtle but present from the dry down on, and it is the factor that tips this scent right into nostalgia territory to me.

 

It is so pretty, and so distinct - unlike anything else I've encountered in the BPAL catalog yet! I quite enamored with this one and plan to hunt down a bottle on the forums.

[Anita]

Dammit I wanted to love this one.

 

Super nauseating throw and all I can small all lilies, which is odd, since it isn't even in the description, but man oh man, there is no question that this is all lilies on my, like big blooming Funeral lilies. When I get my nose up close, I can just make out what I think is the peony, but I smell nothing else.

 

I can't even wait for the drydown, it is giving me a raging headache. Sadly off to the swaps/sales with you..

[Lucchesa]

If you tried your Fire Cock in midwinter and weren't sure about it, I highly recommend getting it out now. On me it is such a summer scent. I too was surprised honeydew was not a listed note because that's what the ensemble smells like to me. Juicy, bright, with the citrus cutting the sweetness, the bamboo underlying everything -- this is a fantastic picnic scent. And while it has pretty good wear length on me, it doesn't have so much throw that I can't wear it to work.

[ShadowEtienne]

Like all of the Lunar New Year scents, this is deeply evocative of the lacquer trays of dried and candied fruits that my foster family would put out for Chinese New Year. There are floral wafts and gentle additions of resins that help to ground the scent, but overall, it's a very citrus forward, tart fruity blend. This is definitely a more fruit forward year, quite similar to Fire Monkey for me. The sticky rice cakes aren't as present here as they are in Water Rabbit, but they do help soften some of the notes that might be too sharp otherwise, they're just a subtle background element.

 

I really do love this one!