TrailerTrashPrincess

yesterday i opened one of my BPAL boxes and reached for something but... apparently i grabbed the bottle beside it instead of the one i meant to pick up. i was getting dressed in a hurry to go run errands so didn't think too much of it.

 

anyhow, i got into the box again today to try and figure out what i wore, and picked this up and put it on again - that's what i wore yesterday.

 

and after a couple hours i figured out what it reminded me of, so i got that bottle out and sprayed some on my other wrist. so i have this on my left, and a different scent on my right. and while they're not 100% identical, they're darn close.

 

so. for any fans of Electric Youth, this might be a good substitute.

 

eta: this is the newer version. i have both but the one i have on right now is the new one.

i loved this. i loved it SO much. i didn't much like the older one, but the '08 was just lovely. i went through... several bottles.

 

now that i sold the last decant i had stashed away - 'cuz i knew i'd never use it - i figured i should jot down my thoughts.

 

when it was fresher (oh, a decade ago) there was a bit more forest in there. woodsy-chilly-trees, deep in the woods where the sun never really hits. never got bonfire smoke, but there's a skin musk and the powdery amber. and the memory of trees.

 

it is almost like the memory of a most excellent night, in a bottle. i hope we get this back again someday.

 

the main image for this is... beautifully creepy.

and that's also what my first thought was, upon sniffing this in the bottle. beautiful... and creepy.

i love the BPAL orchid, and i think that's part of what's giving it the creepy~ness.

i adored the long-discontinued Regan and this is just about the closest thing i've smelled to that in ages. this isn't as sweet, the plum and patchouli give it a warm purple-y depth, but there's still an orchid-y-ness to it. the patchouli doesn't stand out, though, so patchouli or sage haters don't necessarily fear this one. k?

there's a hair gloss that this reminds me of, a teensy bit, but i've got the brain-fog and can't place it. i'll figure it out, though.... could it be wicked matriarch??

my nose isn't the best and my skin is weird... so hopefully other folks will post with better, more eloquent reviews.

 

 

***

i was messaged by someone who wanted to know what the label art looks like, since i mention it is creepy. it is the main image from the Kickstarter for this scent, with the words at top/bottom cut off, but otherwise (as long as this link works) this:

 

 

 

...edited again because i was a 90s goth girl, but i'd never heard of Kambriel. i hadta look that one up.

i don't wanna be first.

i have whatever it is that makes neroli smell like fritos, so i'm always wary of neroli in things making it smell... snacky. but this doesn't have that problem.

i also tend to register white musk as detergent, but again, not in this blend.


there is something creamsicle~ish about it, but in a gorgeous, stylized way.

 

this is gorgeous. seems incense-y and is really just lovely. i'm not getting a tobacco note, but i figure it is the smoked agarwood that's making me think incense because Aloeswood is my faaaaavourite incense scent. (more than nag champa, even).

honestly i think if there was no white musk in this i'd be obsessing over it. as it is, i think it is gorgeous, though.


*note: i'm on the verge of a migraine and my chemistry is doing some wonky stuff, and i'm not feeling 100%, so i might come back and update with a re-test on a more normal sort of day.

i still have an imp or two of the old, original one. i so wanted to like it because i love the smell of new, high-quality leather. (i don't buy new leather, only secondhand, but i don't begrudge anyone who does. because then i get to smell it!)

 

...but i never liked the original. i hoped, perhaps, this new version would be more what i was wanting it to be... but, sadly, it isn't.

 

don't read the spoiler if you like this scent, or want to like it. ok?

 

 

 

 

for folks who wanted a Dead Man's Hand or Quincy Morris type, sorry, this isn't it.

dry elm bark, amaranth, warrior’s musk, and Odin’s Nine Herbs of Power.

 

in the imp and wet on my skin, this is so delicious. strangely like Miskatonic University, but minus the irish coffee.

dry woodsy (but no cedar or pine or anything readily identifiable), and something like maybe a brown musk... and something that might be hay-ish.

 

i could certainly envision a Viking smelling like this. a Viking fond of his soap. or maybe even the favourite soap of a Viking smelling like this.

 

(did you know you can still buy the soap that George Washington used? And JFK for that matter. they didn't use the same soap, but the same company. That company - Caswell Massey sells a 3-bar box of those two, plus the one Eisenhower liked. i never much cared for Eisenhower's favourite, but George and JFK woulda been some fine-smellin' dudes. 'splains a lot about JFK in hindsight, i guess.)

 

sadly after a couple of hours this turns into something that reminds me of Ivanushka. it goes very pickle-y.

i held on to this bottle for ages, because it smells so nice in the bottle but just never worked on my skin.

 

now that this bottle is going on to a better home, i figured i should share the notes i had in the box with it.

 

 

something about this reminds me of a cologne my Daddy wore at some point. it doesn't really smell like chocolate, and it also doesn't really remind me at all of regular Deadly Nightshade Honey.

 

this is kinda like a sweet cigar - unlit.

but on my weird skin, the Lab's honey note dominates everything... and i can't stand it. i love honey, but apparently only east coast honey and not west coast honey. boo.

i've got a little squatty bottle of this that i've had sitting on my desk for over a year. (a sale that fell through and i just never got around to dealing with moving it).

 

and for some reason i opened it and put a drop on the top of my hand a little while ago.

 

didn't really mean to, was thinkin' about trying one of the mainstream (non-BPAL) perfume samples i've gotten in the last week.

 

anyhow, then i got wrapped up in other stuff and forgot. until i had my hand near my face and wondered when i'd put on Black Opal.

 

which i do love Black Opal and i do still have some and could do a comparison, but somehow this year-and-a-bit aged Zorya P turns into something very much like Black Opal on my crazy skin.

 

that is to say ... it is very like Ombre Rose (not BPAL, but also not hard to find).

i dunno if this was discontinued or if it is just out of stock.

 

another one i held on to for years because it almost worked. but just not quite.

 

on me it settles into something halfway between Penny Dreadful and "craft store" ... you know that kinda generic craft store smell, that's part unfinished wood, paper, artificial flowers, hints of potpourri, and whatever it is that makes those stores tend to smell faintly similar no matter if they're chain stores or not?

 

it is a lot nicer than i'm probably making it out to be. a little warm, a lot like balsa wood, and something my brain wants to call sugared dirt, which might sound gross to you but it smells amazing to me.

i've held onto this for years because it smells so amazing in the bottle. never seemed strong enough to wear in a locket, and just wasn't as good on my skin as i wanted it to be.

not as much as it seems like it should have been

 

pretty much everything except the jasmine is just the sort of thing i gravitate towards.... jasmine usually goes poo, or just wrong somehow. so i'm blaming jasmine for why this doesn't work on me.

 

 

there's this deep plummy-purple (verging on Money House) incensey, patchouli-y deliciousness with the faintest wafts of the almost-rose that is geranium.

 

but hinting around the edges of all of that is something poopish, or even almost the tiniest bit civet-y.

finally posting my notes since this bottle is going on to a better home.

this is the third time i've worn this and my gut reaction each time is "Champagne Christmas"

 

i adore the Lab's champagne note, but not the honey. tobacco flower is almost always amazing, and any apple that isn't sour-candy-apple is usually good by me.

 

somehow something in this turns into a close approximation of that frankincense-and-myrrh scent that is the typical "Christmas" scent. but with fizzy champagne.

 

ever been in one of those Christmas-all-year-round stores? the ones i've been to have that scent, with hints of hay and packaging materials. if someone handed me a flute of champagne while walking around one of those... that's the kinda vibe i get from this scent.

 

can't 'splain it, but that's what it is. sadly while it is glorious and gorgeous, it is also headache-inducing for me. boo.

i'd been waiting for someone else to get this going, but i guess everyone else was doing the same thing?

i suck at being the first, so forgive me.

in the bottle and wet on my crazy skin, it smells like a cute boy who uses Irish Spring soap. which i love that scent, so i'm fine with that.

after it settles in, and for about six hours after, it is a cute boy who's used Irish Spring soap, but now is wearing a heavy black leather motorcycle jacket.

i can't say i got greasepaint, but that is a smell i know... maybe my brain's translating the greasepaint note into "cute boy" ?


overall, i really like this... and it is yet another in my BPAL collection that is essentially a memory in a tiny bottle.

i don't wanna be first, because this isn't so much a review as rambling thoughts (which most of my reviews are i admit), but i've been waiting for weeks for someone else to post and i need to get this out of my system before i forget.

somewhere around 89/90 (or, rather, 7th grade) a drugstore scent called Malibu Musk came out. i don't think it was ever all that popular, but it had been around up until last year i think it was finally discontinued. i liked it, i've always liked it, and an older guy i knew, in my best friend's band, well, Malibu Musk made him a little nuts. in what probably would have been delightful ways, if we'd ever gone there, but i had a boyfriend.

every few months whenever i'd wear Malibu Musk, i'd think of him and grin, even if i hadn't seen or even talked to him in a decade.
freakishly, a few years ago, when i did happen to be wearing Malibu Musk, my husband and i ran into him at a BBQ place. the hug i got turned a little awkward, but 20+ years of friendship kinda smoothed things out, i think.

anyhow. i ordered Discarded Silks because the plum blossom, orris root, and violet leaf sounded nice. sweet pea i can do without, vanilla orchid and osmanthus can be amazing or meh, and like everyone else i have no idea what an aglaia flower is.
i haven't used this on my hair, but i've worn it sprayed on my skin like perfume.

at first, it really was more sweet pea and orchid than anything else. but after a couple of hours? it smells like i wore Malibu Musk last night. there's something a little sweeter hovering around the edges, but this smells so very much like the early 90s in all the best ways.

so my graduated-from-high-school-in-the-90s girls? (and boys, of course) you might dig this.

in the standard perfume world, y'know how there are flankers - limited-run scents with the same base fragrance but tweaked up a bit?

 

on me, this was like Dorian Blue. or Dorian Aqua. or Dorian Sport. like it should be in a metallic light-blue box with shiny silver trim.

 

whatever sort of combination of notes added to a base scent to give it that sporty vibe.

and compared to straight-up Dorian, way more masculine.

 

i can't wear Snow White. i keep a little bit of it every year because the smell reminds me of a specific memory - the air freshener my dad kept in his car, plus his cologne, and the smell of his 1974 Lincoln Continental Mark IV two-door land yacht.

 

Dorian, though, is a scent i can wear pretty much any time. (except the hair gloss. it goes weirdly white musk on me).

 

i feel Dorian is gender neutral - it is just a delicious smell. this, though, to me is absolutely masculine. i like it, and i need to put some on my husband to see what it does on him.

 

i think this could be a gateway scent for husbands and boyfriends who aren't too sure about this whole perfume oil thing.

at first this was that really medicinal, astringent lavender (the one i don't like - not the one in TKO!)

 

gardenia is strange on me. commercial perfumes that may, or may not, have gardenia in them sometimes amp into an almost single note sweaty gymsock-and-gardenia type awfulness.

and things that do have gardenia in them, it overwhelms.

 

so this ends up sweaty gardenia with a wintergreen-y cedar-y thing. i knew it wouldn't be something that worked on me, but i figured i should try it.

sadly on me this goes to chamomile tea stirred with a pencil.

i don't want to be first! but the Lab's food drive was weeks ago and our DSLE was a few nights ago and nobody else has posted... so i guess i'll start us off?

i'll start by saying my skin chemistry does strange things, and my sense of smell isn't the greatest.

i love patchouli, and the smell of tobacco (not when being smoked, but just the loose leaves. and a Tobacco Flower oil from somewhere, from ages ago, is still one of the most beautiful things i've ever smelled. but that's not relevant here!)
hay, well, i don't mind it but it isn't something that would sway me really one way or another.

so i expected a more earthy-ish patchouli.

after 13 years or so of being into BPAL i should know better than to have notions about what something should smell like, shouldn't i?

this is snuggly and cozy. something, maybe the hay?, goes a little almost-hamster-cage-y for a little bit, but then settles into almost powdery.


Sunday night at the DSLE, one of my friends said she liked it but that it reminded her of someone she didn't like - but she couldn't figure out who.
well, maybe that person is a guy who at some point wore Wild Country from Avon.

i like masculine scents, and so have quite a collection of guy cologne scents.

and some of the ones i like best are kinda stodgy, dad-and-grampa ones. like Old Spice, and Wild Country.

the Avon roll-on deodorant in Wild Country is one i use often. that's what this BPAL reminds me of.

i also have the fairly-recent Demeter scent "Kitten Fur" sitting on my desk, and today i've had Kitten Fur on top of my right hand and Children of the Cornucopia on the top of my left hand.

they're not identical or dupes, not by any means, but they're similar enough on me that without smelling them side-by-side in comparison i think i'd have a hard time telling them apart.

after a couple of hours, there's something in Children of the Cornucopia that kinda reminds me of Autumn Overlooked my Knitting from a couple years back. i'd need to test them side-by-side to see if that's something my crazy brain is cooking up or if there really is something to it. it might just be that they're both snuggly types, though.

i'd call this one gender neutral, but could summarize it as a powdery masculine scent.

Graveyard Dirt is one of my absolute favourite scents. i adore it. i've tried "dirt" and "earth" type scents from other companies and none of them compare.

 

at first, this blend seems like it might be based on Graveyard Dirt, and maybe it is, and for the first couple of hours it was nice. like a cousin of both The Premature Burial (my absolute favourite BPAL, ever) and Graveyard Dirt.

 

but after a few hours, it morphed. dramatically, on me. i think it might be that "marble" note that goes wrong... either that or the moss?

 

 

back in the late 80s and early 90s, my cousin lived with us - my mom's nephew - and the closest thing to a brother i'll ever have. we've never had too much in common, i had more in common with his big brother who's about 20 years older than me.

anyway, like many young men around that time, my cousin wore Drakkar Noir. at one time, in one of the houses we lived in, his room was at the bottom of the stairs, and mine was at the top of the stairs. something about the air currents brought soooo much of that Drakkar Noir up onto the landing outside my door, and every.single.time it was insta-headache.

 

still is, even all these years later. the cologne may have been reformulated but whatever gives me sick headaches from it is still there.

 

and sadly after about three hours, on me Coimetrophobia becomes all too Drakkar-y. two other oils, three soaps, vinegar, and a bit of household cleanser (an accident, but still) and i can still smell it on my hand even from a few feet away.

i adore Dorian. and i use a lot of TKO.

 

.... after about an hour this has become a nose-stinging clove, with TKO and something like a woody-bitter Dorian.

it was that "sugary breakfast cereal" that made me interested in this.

 

it was one of the three scents i tested at the DSLE this past weekend, and it was sweet and delicious but i find it hard to judge things accurately in a room full of so many scents...

so i was really looking forward to trying it when my order was delivered.

 

 

i've had it on for a couple of hours now and it hates my skin. but that's ok, my wallet doesn't mind.

 

 

at first there were nuances of Golletes (which i adore) but then it settled in and changed into The Oval Portrait but with the addition of White Blossoms.

 

after about an hour it is mostly just those white flowers - i don't know if it is gardenia, it doesn't seem that shrill and headachey - but it ends up being more that and way less of the sweet cereal-ness i was hoping for.

 

bear in mind, though, that if there's anything even remotely gardenia-y in anything, my skin will amp it into next week. that's especially true for regular commercial perfumes, but also true for oils.

on me this turned into Heavenly from Victoria's Secret, one of their flagship perfumes and i swear they pumped it out as air freshener in their stores for years.

i got a free bottle of it for being a "Forever Angel" a few years ago, and i use it from time to time, and Media smells so much like a slightly nicer, or slightly more natural, version of that scent.

 

quite pretty, very nonoffensive, ladylike, and clean.

i had very little interest in this because i figured it would be amber or jasmine or metallic or just not my cuppa.

 

boy was i wrong!

 

i can't tell you what's in this, and i'm not entirely over my Swamp Plague so my nose isn't working as well as i wish, but.... for fans of old BPAL scents: The Evening Star, House of Mirrors (the perfume oil, not the hair gloss), Wolf Moon '04, or even Berenice, you're gonna wanna try this one. maaaaybe even if you loved Siberian Musk SN but haven't tried the other ones i listed?

 

it is close to the skin without much throw, but that's ok. it's clean - like a clean skin musk - and like air and water, but not ozoney. almost floral, but then again not. not the most helpful review, i know, but mostly i wanted to get it out there how much this one reminds me of some srsly old-school BPAL scents. 'cuz i figure there are some folks out there who loved those, and rarely wear them, and this is one of the first blends in a long time that reminded me of those.

i finally got a reply from the Lab, and they shipped a replacement bottle of this in my most recent order. And it is obvious that i was previously shipped mislabelled bottles!

 

so anyone who got decants of this from me, i don't know what scent it is in the bottles they shipped, but it isn't this.

 

the bottles i had smelled like diet Smut - red musk but no sugar... and also no cherry like from the other similar scent Delight in Disorder. honestly in sniffing the little bit i have left, it smells a lot like Ill Omen from the Caesar update.

 

anyhow, this is mostly a PSA. and a bit of a review of what i have in a bottle labelled as Delightful Visitor Among the Haystacks.... even though it obviously isn't.

nooooo, keep Capiz's bones inside, where they belong! no hurt my friend!

 

er. i digress.

 

fruity!

almost like it could've been from the Tiki update from mumbledymumble years ago.

something reminds me of Lilith versus Giant Crab.

 

a masculiney creamsicley thing?

 

surprisingly wearable, though.

surprise winner from this update for me!

 

something here reminds me of Lush/B-Never's Vanillary a little bit. and what was that last scent that B Never made before they went away? Keep It Fluffy? no, Superworld Unknown? maybe? this is a unisex, slightly more masculine-feeling counterpart to that. way not what i was expecting.

 

 

i know this isn't much in the way of a review, and i'll try to remember to update this the next time i wear it.