2006: Fruit Phoenix

[zankoku_zen]

2006 brought us to New Orleans for Convergence XII, which was an amazing event on so many levels, but also marked the first time we were able to get together with our sisters, the moderators of bpal.org.

Smut first besmirched the virginal sanctity of our catalogue in Spring, Carnaval Diabolique materialized on August 2nd of 2006, and Black Moon and Schwarzer Mond appeared for the first time over the dark skies of BPAL. That winter, Krampus made himself known in our Yule update for the first time.

A scent celebrating fifteen years of the FRUITS of our labor. Haaaaaaaaaa…. I sure love my awful Uncle Jokes. Snake Oil with Schwarzer Mond’s terebinth, a swish of Krampus’ switches, black currant, pomelo, and chthonic black pomegranate.

Snowy pine, black pomegranate, a touch of wood and black currant on a musky base. I don't really get Snake Oil from this, and all of the other components win out on my skin particularly the pine and black pomegranate. Good throw and wear length.

[torikitty]

This makes me think of mashing up cherry chapstick with burt's bees pomegranate chapstick, with a faint whiff of pine and leather in the background. I guess I just amp the fruit part of this.

[Numanoid]

Got a decant of this from the lovely Carrie above.... I love most Snake Oil blends, and this one intrigued me. Wasn't sure about the terebinth and Krampus...and I honestly don't know what pomelo is, but Snake Oil and some dark fruits.... sure, why not!

 

Sniffing, I get the Snake Oil.... and a mixture of the other scents... pine... fruit...so far, not too shabby.

 

On...oh my... I really like this! I get Snake Oil and both the black currant and pomegranate!! Terebinth (that is a kind of pine, right?) is very much in the background for me!

 

I mostly just get the fruit and SO and I love it!! Has great throw for me!! Need to have more than a decant!!!

[LiberAmoris]

Fruit Phoenix goes on with a strong wash of what must be the terebinth (smells like pine). This is a camphorous moment, but it passes quickly. It then settles into a fuzzy, tart black currant and pomegranate blend, accented by a light hand of Snake Oil and maybe some red musk. Woods, tart dark fruit, and the sugared Indonesian oils of Snake Oil make for a nice combo.

[patina]

I wish I'd tried this before I put in my order, but I didn't think it would go well because I don't like sour scents much. But this turned out to be pleasantly tart fruit more than smoothed over by the rich resins of Schwarzer Mond and the spiced vanilla in Snake Oil. The pine is present on first application but on me it disappears into the Schwarzer Mond on drydown.

[Mountaingrrl00]

This one surprised me. I put this on in the morning. It came on strong with the chilly evergreen and dark pomegranate, and felt very much like a winter/Yule-themed atmosphere scent. It took quite awhile for the pine to calm down, and I was getting ready to write it off as too sharp and green, but it turned warmer and richer a couple hours in, and by the evening I had a moment of "what's that great smell? Oh, it's the Fruit Phoenix I'm wearing!" By that time it was less fruit, more Snake Oil base and leather. Now nearly midnight, I'm huffing the dregs of that glorious end-phase.

[Little Bird]

I expected this to be dark, slinky, and resinous from the Snake Oil and Schwarzer Mond, but I can't really smell either of those blends here. As others have mentioned, this starts off with a chilly, mentholic pine and a very tart pomegranate. Bpal's pom mostly turn to a sour sweet tarts smell on my skin, and that's what I get from this. As it dries down, the currant, I think, is making it more of a sweet berry smell. It reminds me a little of Kool-Aid or Jello, but with a waxy undertone.
Goes powdery on me after about the 45 minute mark - sweet, waxy berries and powder. Snake Oil can go powdery on my skin, so that might be the SO coming out. Fades quickly past this point.

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: At first I think it's going to be a lot of pine, and I am going to hate it. Turns out it's actually a lot of pomegranate and I don't care for that either. Pomegranate goes "dusty" and artificial on me.

 

 

Dry: Dries down to all pomegranate. Not for me!

[milo]

Starts out slightly fruity with musk, then goes all sweet fruit. This ends up being dusty pom. Not for me.

[thecaitycat]

In the bottle

Darkly sweet, like fruity, boozy cough syrup but not gross. The kind of cough syrup you can't give to kids. Also, I like cough syrup, so...

 

Wet on skin

SUPER STRONG with lots of throw. Less fruity, but still dark and sweet. And the pomegranate comes right through, but in a sinister kind of way. There's a little evergreen/conifer in this, which I knew about when I read the description and bought the bottle, but I was hoping my skin wouldn't amp it up too much. Cautiously optimistic. Still slightly cough syrupy.

 

Dry on skin after 30 minutes

The Snake Oil is more pronounced the longer it sits on my skin, but the pomegranate tempers it to make it less spicy and more fruity. The coniferous note is either gone or masked by everything else, and this is turning fruity again, much to my delight. Pomegranate is still the most prominent fruit note but I also detect currant and something sparkly, which is probably the pomelo. Overall this is also a bit softer now, so if I were to wear it to work I would put it on as I did my makeup so that by the time I got to work, it wouldn't go "HELLO COWORKERS!"

 

Thoughts

An enjoyable blend! This is a boozy, grandma's-adult-cough-medicine-wink-wink type of pomegranate/currant concoction that played well with my skin chemistry. The strongest part of this lasted about four hours on me, but there were little remainders here and there for a while longer. I don't know that I need a backup bottle, but I will happily wear the bottle I bought. A little goes a long way so I expect this to last quite a while.

[zazkea]

First snif

Initially, this was shrimp + sharpness on my skin! So I put this into the box and waited, because in my experience, bpal scents get better after some time.

 

In the bottle (re-opened after 3 months)

I get mainly pomegranate (not, per se, black) and only a bit of snake oil (the latter, I really like) and maaabye citrus.

Unfortunately, I do not know Schwarzer Mond and Krampus, so I cannot get these individually, but what I do get is a feeling of a bit of darkness, which I, in this case, like. I do get a bit of dark amber and maybe myrrh (?) - very much in the background though.

 

Wet

The black currant comes, now also more snake oil. So not really spicy, not really fruity. Not bad either. My opinion so far is neutral...

 

Dry

I find this is too balanced to identify individual notes, so I cannot really tell a good story of "first this comes, than that", because its all there at the same time. Certainly, it becomes a bit deeper when developing/warming-up on the skin. What I do get when this has been on the skin for a while, is:

• a feeling of brownish-red, honeyed-myrrh, carribbean (?) snake-oil in the far back (by that i mean not too sweet or too bitter, and somehow I get an impression of a very far away non-sweet but maybe woody rum (?)), warm amber, maaabye sweetened patchouli (?). And I only get black currant or pomegranate if I imagine them, so I am not sure they are really there. Again, this is all simultaneously and hard to tell.

 

Conclusions

Fruit Phoenix is slightly sweet AND bitter on my skin at the same time; warm and nicely accompanying. There is fruit, but I would not call this fruity. Not per se snake-oily. Well-balanced. Good for all seasons. I clearly like it, but it doesnt make me go "wow". Can be worn in the office.

[Aveya]

In the imp this is a bright faux leather (its like leather everything to my nose lately :| )

 

Disclaimer: I've never been a snake oil fan. I just don't see it. People say it gets better with age - sure. I've had some seriously aged imps I gave a shot and still don't see it. I'm betting it's a skin chemistry thing just not working the right way. Which is all good - but that means I got Fruit Phoenix sort of randomly and with skepticism.

Also never tried Schwarzer Mond.

 

Fresh on skin: Sweet, dark, tart, wet.

Drydown skin: Interestingly sweet. Yet remains dark. Not very spicey or fragrant in any other notable way to me. It's got that BPAL musk to it, almost like when I open up boxes of my favorite imps and get hit in the face with musky deep overtones of random darkness. But sensual and deep.

 

Overall; Goth pomjuice-injected Pomelo.

[thekittenkat]

in the bottle: It seems to be mostly SO w/ tiny whiffs of all the other notes.

wet: The other notes are slowly coming forward.

the dry-down: A black leather note from Krampus' switches is most obvious. Perhaps the black fruits will come to my rescue later. The pine forest, alas, is far in the distance.

I'll give this some time to age, as fresh SO isn't my thing, but that black leather note is problematical.

ETA:

much later: Abt 2 hrs after I applied this, the dark fruits began to bloom beautifully on my wrist.

Edited May 22, 2018 by thekittenkat

[torischroeder9]

Partial decant as a frimp from alterosen. 

 

In the decant: Terebinth, sharp black leather, and black currant. 

 

On my skin:

 

Wet, the black leather is on top, though I can detect the Snake Oil trying to come through underneath. As it dries, it evokes a scent of warm, piney Snake Oil (like Christmas Snake Oil, which is not actually a thing, but if it were a thing, it might be this). This was also the point where my husband came home and said, unprompted, that the house smelled nice. Up close, the leather and fruits dominate. 

 

Given more time to develop on my skin, the fruits come to the forefront while the leather recedes quite a bit. I get a very fruit-forward Snake Oil with a hint of pine. It's deeper and more complex than Pomegranate Grove: Snake Oil but does run in that vein. As someone who loves the Christmas "feel" but doesn't really enjoy wearing too much evergreen, I think this would make a lovely alternative Christmas scent for me. 

 

Off to search for a partial bottle...

[doomsday_disco]

At first, I get a lot of Schwarzer Mond's terebinth, backed by some of the fruity notes, and a bit of the woodiness from Krampus' switches. As the scent sits on my skin, the terebinth calms down, and the fruit notes (particularly the pomegranate and black currant) and Snake Oil gain strength, making this mostly a fruity pomegranate Snake Oil touched by woods.

 

I think this smells nice and it smells true to its name. I don't think I'd reach for it over other Snake Oil variants (I wish the terebinth had remained a dominant note on me!), but it was nice to get to try it.  

Edited August 20, 2021 by doomsday_disco

[Missanneshirleyofgg]

Was wondering what my nose was interpreting as camphor, and looked up Terebrinth (The whole plant emits a strong smell: bitter, resinous, or medicinal). I am trying to make a scent memory of this note, so moving forward I can recognize it, as I often have issues with black currant going barnyard on me and at first suspected the currant. After ten minutes this becomes a pine like resin and dark fruits on me. It is still a little herb/medicinal, but I find it cleansing. I normally wouldnt think of dark fruits like pomegranate as being capable of cleansing properties, but it works here. It has a yule vibe, too. I think this would be a wonderful scent to wear while taking down Christmas decor, It both has a wintery feeling, and the herb cleansing vibe feels like a way to move out of the yule season and into the new years, Wish I had waited to take my tree down!!! Really lovely, but suspect for me the decant is enough. ❤️ Thank you friend for sharing!