feralstrumpet

My recent BPAL obsession has been Dublin, the imp of which was given to me by my friend Petra. I'm gutted that this has been discontinued, as I've come to love it. It doesn't suggest Dublin to me, which should really have a malt note in it and perhaps some phantom pork grease and maybe some church incense and furtive sex. And if we are thinking of Joyce, then orange blossom, too-- Molly's perfume. But BPAL's Dublin doesn't smell like that at all. What it does smell like is a book, or a green room full of books. I won't be so bold as to say it smells like Joyce, having never had that particular pleasure, but there is something in the scent that's manly-- a bit sweaty and warm-- like someone who has been working quietly at nefarious things, in a little green room filled with books, under the eyes of an uncomprehending god. Oh, yeah, did I forget to tell you that I have a big crush on Joyce? The first time I went to Dublin it was right after being seduced by Ulysses and that has produced this particular synesthesia.

In the imp it smells very dank and mineral, a lot like the portal tombs I've crawled into in the Orkneys. I like it, but I'm not sure I want to smell like this. It's so authentic. I've actually had this imp for a few days now and was intimidated by the uncanny cave-like quality of it. Today I put it on and surprise! Something's reaching out from the wet dark and handing me a big bunch of tea roses, petals browning to black. The mineral tang threatens to take over the rose-- I smell like an old wheat cent-- but just for a moment, and then it's just dank, dead roses. I'm definitely not in the right head space for this one, but I love that this has been captured in a bottle.

I thought I mentioned this here but it must have been in the main Lush thread. I finally bought American Cream a few weeks ago and to me it smells almost exactly like Black Opal. So much so that I decided to wear Black Opal with it, hunted high and low for my new imp and couldn't find it, scraped the last tiny droplet out of my empty imp, and finally ended up ordering a 5ml I'd been planning to get. I was reading the description for Black Opal and thought it might be a good companion/match. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to have to add that one to my list of imps to try!

I've looked through this entire thread and haven't seen a mention of the discontinued Lush soap Waylander Rhassoul-- is there a BPAL oil which smells like this? This has been a great thread-- I love Butterball and American Cream smells and it's nice to know Morocco, Love and Pain, Regan and Antique lace might work, as mentioned in earlier threads, but if someone has other BPAL suggestions to these Lush scents that would be ace!

The amazing stutefish sent me a bottle of Judith & Holofernes. When I asked her how it seemed when she first smelled it, she said it was like it slapped her. And this of course piqued my curiosity further. When the postman brought the box up the stairs of my building, I knew what he had in that box before he even handed it to me-- already the scent had filled the hallway with some exotic, dark incense. At first when I opened the bottle I thought-- whoa-- this is a smell you're never ready for-- something medicinal, pre-operative. And then of course, before I could even strategize how I might apply it and break it in slowly, I spill a big droplet on myself. I'm sticky with this smell that's at once exactly like the description of "skin musk and honey" but not a sweet honey-- rather the brittle, earthy halo of honey-- the taste beyond the sweet. And the skin musk-- well, it's like I smell like someone else, it's like the Witness Protection Program in some animal universe where we sniff to know. It's like the base-me smell, but bigger, brasher. I wish I still had dreads because this would have smelled good on them. But then it morphs into a molasses scent, and then the carnation comes out and the scent outgrows me-- I think this is how I might smell in 10 or 20 years, not so much ripe as hardened. There's this steely note that comes out that I associate with fancy-yet-no-nonsense perfume-- something an expensive divorce lawyer might wear. Maybe it's the carnation? Florals and I don't generally get along. And then for a moment I smell just like molasses cookies. Hours later it stops the big show and the baking-- sheaths its sword and congeals into something very human-- it's a cave-dweller scent-- the patchouli, sandalwood and musk hanging around in the dark. I have now tried to wear it in small droplets in various places all over my body to minimize the "throw"-- I find when my skin starts to absorb it I crave it-- the whole wild trajectory of it drying on me.

So I've been spending some quality time with Devil's Night, which was given to me by a friend. In the vial it's a bit like buttered, sweet hooch. Very boozy, rich and spicy, like a sinister punch. On the skin there's a moment of OH OH-- am I going to smell like the seasonal display at a craft store? And then it goes from menopausal domesticity to juvenile delinquency in the time it takes to throw a brick through a window. Maud, I love this scent. As it warms there's roasted chestnuts and musk-- the smell of a black dog laying by a fire blazing off an old mattress. And there's booze, boozy booze. When I was a child living outside of Chicago, Halloween was always met with certain trepidation by adults and I knew it was because come morning things would be burnt and broken, marked and marred. And I knew who did it-- they were the same kids that would hang outside the rec center in the wood-chip playground, drinking and chewing gum and wearing black eyeliner melted with lighters. They wore tee shirts with Molly Hatchet Frazetta covers on them, and early Black Sabbath. They thought I was funny and cute and I thought they were like dark gods. I asked my mom what Black Sabbath meant and she said she didn't know but the concern on her face let me know I was onto something. You know what smelling this is like, when it really heats up on my wrist? It's like one of those bad girls reaching out from that playground in 1978 and giving me a swig of her mysterious moonshine that tastes of sparks and hide.

OK, in the bottle I'm thinking this is way too floral, but I'm going to try it anyway. Immediately when I put it on I just smelled lilies-- the flower of choice of every boyfriend I ever had. What is it about me that says, "I put the fun in funereal!" So, at first warm up it's already feeling like a mistake. This girly femme thing and me, we don't quite get along. She plays by the rules and waits. This is a coy scent and I need something that's more, well, BRAZEN HUSSY. After about 10 minutes I smell like Mister Bubble, and this is bringing me back to when I was a wee tot and my twin brother and I would take baths together with Mister Bubble, and this is really not something you want to smell in a seduction elixir. OK, going to scrub myself now and try to go to my happy place. I think I will stay away from florals for a while. With that said, I can see how this would smell great on someone else!

Tezcatlipoca scent starts off like bitter Mexican chocolate...the kind that comes in triangles with the yellow label. And there's the smell of steel with it, until it gets on the skin. Then, for about an hour, it's like a chocolate left on your pillow in a posh hotel...crisp linen with a hint of bleach underneath, until the sandalwood creeps out and then it just soaks in mellowing to smoky sweet wax. Wearing it, I feel a bit sneaky and invincible. I made my husband try some and on him there was definitely more resin, more of the leather and smoke. In other words, hotness. Whew! I love this so much I've ordered a big bottle.

I'm a bit of a BPAL n00b. My friend gave me a bunch of imps that didn't work for her and I've been making my way through the stash one scent at a time, and just recently put in my first order from the lab. Jazz Funeral was intimidatingly real in the vial. It was just like sticking your nose in some mossy, mouldy, newly dug grave, complete with silk flowers clotted in the mud, their artificial perfume almost subsumed by decay. I put off trying to wear it because every time I smelled it I thought of New Orleans before the floods, and how I had once tried to convince my husband to move there-- I was so desperate to leave Los Angeles, and I loved the distended glamour of the place, how it seems rife with Temporary Autonomous Zones and people inventing themselves with humor and verve. When I smell Jazz Funeral this comes back to me in a bittersweet way. Today I actually put it on me. Big mistake. On, the only thing that persisted was the mould and fake flowers. It took me back not to New Orleans but a damp flat where I used to live in West London. I wore it for an hour, until it waned to a hint of Vick's vap-o-rub. I'm beginning to see how this BPAL thing is a bit like a Proustian safari-- even if some turn out not to be wearable in the trad perfume sense, it's a fascinating journey. Body chemistry is strange. I think when I was younger and could wear sharper things, this would have dried down interestingly. But it seems like now things that work on me are warm and round, thick scents-- as my chemistry seems to turn even those brighter.