marared

While obviously this is a blend that will benefit from a few months or even a couple years in the closet, obviously I wanted to investigate it immediately upon arrival. And this is a lot .... *fresher* than I expected from the notes. At a distance, there's an ammoniac funk that I am almost certain is the leather note, and it's very similar to what I get from jasmine. But held close to my nose, the funk is almost not noticeable and it's fresh and airy. I cannot particularly smell the oakmoss or the labdanum, but the woody-incense oudh is definitely there at the bottom layer - it's the last note my nose picks up. There is a decent amount of throw, and you don't need much.

Will have to review again at a later date, because this almost definitely is going to change with age.

2017 review: not at ALL like the original. Dionysia was My Girl - everyone loved it on me, from famous musicians to bus drivers. Fierce and obnoxious with a ton of throw when fresh, smooth and mellow but still salacious with some age on it. I went through a LOOOT of bottles.

 

This? Is some faded reminiscence of what she used to be. The scent is so faint it's barely detectable in the bottle, never mind on the skin. Even with six months of age, there's still no personality to this new version of the scent. It's not a bad scent, but it's now a generic low-key fruity-patchouli-wood that has no layers or depth.

 

I have a sad.

Travel shock usually isn't a big deal for me, but this scent suffered badly for some reason - several days after arrival, it's completely different from what I remember when I first opened it. And I'm glad, because I was looking forward to this one in particular, and I was kinda horrified at first, but it's improved substantially. Vanilla tea (not vanilla AND tea, but specifically vanilla tea where the vanilla is just an overtone that you can't really even taste once it's brewed), and a certain sweetness that my nose is associating with the mahogany specifically.

 

Sweet cozy woody tea. Yeah.

Leather with a hint of vetiver, and the cigar appears in the mix after it's dried down. Unfortunately, the leather also has a whiff of ammonia to it. It's strong when it's freshly applied, but even after it's dried down and sat for a while, there's still a slight undercurrent that makes my nose twitch every time the scent reaches it.

I should have known better. I amp red musk like CRAZY - it literally dominates over every other note in any blend on my skin. I hoped there was enough of a variety of other notes to keep this one under control - I can smell the coconut/patchouli in the imp, but as soon as it his my skin, it's straight up red musk.

So Orion is basically confirmation that BPAL's fig is a NOPE with my skin chemistry. Nasty Woman smelled like nasty fig syrup, and while Orion smells like leather, cedar, pepper, and just a bit of cardamom (in that order) in the imp, on my skin it's overwhelmed by nasty fig. Nasty Woman never aged out of that stage, so I'm not confident this will either, but I'll hang on to it and see how it is next year or so.

I don't know what I expected of this - I ordered it as an oddball, considering my usual tastes. Bergamot is usually too sharp, liquor notes tend to go sour, and I amp the crap out of rose. But every now and then I've been surprised by things I shouldn't like, and this is one of them. I ended up liking it the best of ALL the decants I tried, and went straight to the site and bought a bottle.

 

I have no idea why I smell vanilla, but I do. Sweet, feminine, girly rose vanilla. I have to inhale deeply to get an undercurrent of sharp greenness. This is a LOT like Symmakhia, which is the only other BPAL rose blend I like enough to order, except without the pear.

 

Edit to add that after 20-30 minutes, I start getting that sour tang from the cognac, but it's not too offensive. I think maybe it'll let up with some age.

2017 edition:

 

Backstory: I was a little nervous blind-buying this one, because I tried Flor de Muerto many years ago and for about ten minutes it was FLAMAZING, and my skin chemistry turned it disgusting and vile. But I loved the initial green marigold scent so much that I decided I wanted to try this to see if maybe the components were different enough.

 

Happily, the marigold does NOT go sour, and the rose (my other concern) does NOT amplify this into floral hell. It's marigold and chamomile with *some* rose - I don't really smell any of the vanilla (it's just baaaaarely in there, holding things together, no real sweetness to it) - or the mums, oddly enough, and mums can be kinda obnoxious. It's not as green as Flor de Muerto, due to the dead leaf aspect, but it's still a cheery scent - a bright and sunny autumn day, gusts of wind send golden leaves slowly shimmering into gardens.

I'm gonna have to think about buying a backup. It's gonna end up a 2nd or 3rd tier favorite - not the sort of scent that makes random strangers compliment me, but I like it and might be reaching for it regularly.

Got a sample as a freebie, and I was a little nervous, because BPAL's tobacco almost universally smells like death on me, except for Penumbra. This? I was gobsmacked at how good this was. It's dry and sweet, but it's not gasoline-sweet like the flower - this is a syrupy dried tobacco, somewhere between earthy and gourmand. Vaguely resinous, almost caramel. It doesn't change much on my skin - maybe gets a little deeper.

 

I need dis.

This is not the rich and buttery dark woodsy vanilla I was hoping for - the vanilla is nice and not the overly sweet gack of the Single Note or Love's Philosophy, and the sandalwood holds it down nicely, but the lotus root dominates just a little too much, and I'm not sure if it's *supposed* to have that funky overture or if it's not playing nice with my skin.

This scent is either honey OR it's spicy carnation. I love it, but it's weird how it flips between the two scents with very little overlap.

 

It does not smell anything like Morocco to me - Morocco is more of a very slightly floral sandalwood, and this is a hell of a lot more sweet and floral, although it is not *obnoxiously* floral. I do not smell any ginger, and occasionally I get the slightest whiff of the tea, but I have to be actively trying to smell it to notice it. I think I would have liked this to be a little more ginger and tea and a little less amber and honey, but that's the nature of those scents; they just take over eeeeeverything. I still like it.

 

I sprayed some on one section of my hair about fourteen hours ago and I can still smell it, but it doesn't leave a HELLO TRAIL OF VAGINA TREASURE floating along behind me.

This is everything I hoped for and more out of a vetiver scent. It's obnoxiously woodsy right off the bat - far more wood than vetiver - but it mellows out very quickly. It's still woodsy, but becomes much smoother - it hovers between powdery and resinous but remains delicious. There is even just the *barest* sweet undertone to it after 10-15 min. If you're a vetiver-hater, this will not change your mind, because it does lend a noticeable smokiness to the overall scent, but if you're curious and want to give it a try, or want a vetiver that isn't thick and scorched, this would be a good scent to try.

 

I'd label it definitively masculine, although that's never stopped me!

This is only vetiver-y for a couple of minutes on application; the smokiness dies away quickly, and the oudh/musk turns to powder. Fortunately, it's not the obnoxious sort of powder that comes from frankincense or amber, it's a far richer resinous powder... but still powder. Kind of like high-class deodorant for men.

Soft, delicate, fresh green bamboo on first application, but the vanilla sandalwood kicks in as it warms up on my skin. Very barely floral. Not a lot of throw. I need dis.

I've had this in the closet for a couple of months and finally took it for a test drive. This is a ridiculously mellow blend. Very very masculine, but like a calm lumbersexual with big hands who doesn't have anything to prove. If you want to try patchouli but you're afraid of it, this is a good place to start. It's so smooth, like it's had several years to age. The leather and the wood is finely balanced - none of the three notes compete with each other at all, and the honey is just a bare hint of underlying sweetness. I tend to amp BPAL's honey, and this one behaves really well.

 

I might need more of this.

Smells like O with apricot. I don't get *any* lavender out of this. The blood orange musk is most apparent in the bottle and when freshly applied, but after 10-15 minutes, it's apricot and amber (which my skin likes to amp a bit). Warm and sweet just like O.

Cool herbal patchouli, just a little sweet. Reminds me a little bit of Penumbra with less musk. I really like this. I'm not sure I like this so much I need to go out and hunt down a bottle, but I might change my mind...

I was hoping for this to be a cousin of Glasgow, which is one of my favorite GCs (at least when it's fresh and you can still smell the blackberry), It's very slightly sweet, but not disgustingly so. It almost comes off as a dry, dark, dusty grape, and it gets more syrupy on the drydown. It's not bad, but I would have liked this better with more dead leaf balancing it out.

I liked the cardamom in Unicorn & Ram, so I was curious to see how this was. On me, it's pretty much single note cardamom. There's a very dry aspect to it that I suppose could be described as leaves, but yeah, straight up cardamom. I like it, mostly because cardamom is apparently about the only BPAL spice that does NOT go sour on me, which is sad-making because I love the smell of dessert and savory spices.

 

If I think about it, I get the aquatic-men's-cologne vibe that other people have mentioned, because it *is* fairly high pitched, but not particularly *sweet* per se.

Very figgy right out of the bottle, and very loukhoumy when it's dry. There's a weird final note when it's fresh that's ... kinda nasty. I'm gonna stick this in the closet for a few months so it can smooth out and see if it improves with time.

I'm a little iffy on BPAL's leather, but this is not strongly leathery at all. It is indeed a touch sweet - cardamom musk with a hint of leather. I bet this would be great layered with a coffee note.

Very definitely smells like the vanilla in Love's Philosophy. Wrong kind of sweet for me, alas.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this - the "golden" sorts of scents usually go powdery on me, but I AM LEO and I had to try it.

Surprisingly, this isn't bad at all. It's cool and more floral in the bottle - I smell the carnation and the helichrysum, but the instant it goes on my skin, the amber and saffron warm up and say HELLO! It's very warm and very fuzzy, but while I now can only barely detect the carnation, the flowers keep everything balanced without smelling *floral*. After ten minutes or so on my skin, if I inhale really deeply, I almost smell something like butter cookies, although this is definitely not a foodie/gourmand scent, it's just a few molecules of buttery sweetness.

It reminds me of a more intense version of The Butterfly from The Last Unicorn, which also has golden amber. It also kinda makes me think of The Hag without the bay rum.

This starts out fruity - it reminds me of Pomona for the first ten or fifteen minutes. Once it dries down, though, it turns into a lovely warm and fuzzy resin that's only slightly sweet; I don't think I could even tell you this had an element of vanilla. There is not a whole lot of throw, but it sticks around; I could smell it on my wrists for several hours even on a sweaty day at work. I don't smell a whole lot of coffee, especially not after drydown. The vetiver is not burnt or smoky or even particularly noticeable, it just helps nail the scent down and keeps it from being too sweet or icky. The myrrh pokes its head out occasionally, and this was the note I was worried about, but it doesn't go to powder on me.

 

I think I would call this a cousin to Mad Meg, without the mandarin or the cinnamon.

 

Edit to say that with a little time and full drydown, it smells like a soft dark woodsy vanilla.

Loud, heady, powdery opium that smells like floral soap on me. Cannot really smell the vetiver. Tried to wait for the drydown, but had to go scrub it off. NOPE.