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Showing results for tags 'BPAL 12th Anniversary'.
Found 16 results
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A perfume of freedom, regeneration, and renewal: bitter orange and tangerine with warm patchouli, tobacco absolute, glittering amber, and white musk. This starts with the bitter orange note which is lovely. Once dry it rounds out and darkens somewhat - the orange is still there but it has taken a woody, masculine turn. The patchouli doesn't make itself stand out although I presume it's responsible for that. After an hour or so I can pick out the underlying tobacco. I can't find the amber or musk at all. This would smell really good on a man I think, but I'm unsure if it will suit me - but I will keep it to see if aging changes it.
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Swift joy and bright passion: white lavender, lemon verbena, and elemi. When it's wet, and in the bottle, this is all lavender and nothing else. However once it dries it turns completely to a beautiful fresh lemon oil scent, no trace of lavender at all. It stays that way for about an hour and then gradually softens. It still remains lemony but not zingy. Lemon usually disappears fast on me but 3 hours in and its still soft lemon, very slightly herbal, but starting to fade. I can't pick out elemi under all the lemon.
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Scales of gold, rose-tinted with red musk, bourbon geranium, and vanilla absolute. There is a very strong rose note in this, not what I was expecting. Unfortunately I am not getting anything else as the floral overwhelms the musk and vanilla on me.
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An incense of myrtle leaf, sweet bay, white myrrh, stacte, and the golden frankincense. first applied there is a bright, slightly camphoraceous herbal note, sharp but not unpleasant. as this scent dries down, the myrrh and frank come forward and do "that bpal thing." this is a lovely incense blend. actually very soft and light when it's dried down. I'm hoping a few weeks of aging will improve it's wear length, which currently is under a few hours.
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Cabreuva and blood red rose with myrrh, cypress, black jasmine, clove, and 7-year aged patchouli. Oh my goodness, the MYRRH. If you love myrrh, you should definitely give Death is Venus to Her a try, because it's very pretty here and definitely the star on my skin. Wet, this is red rose and myrrh in what smells like equal proportion, with the clove adding a lot of character and the black jasmine closely behind but beautifully in check. If patchouli wasn't a listed note, I'm not sure I would pick it up, although there is something smooth filling in all the gaps so that might be the aged patchouli. I had to look up Cabreuva, which is apparently a tropical tree with an EO that's similar to balsam of Peru. Dry, this is myrrh rounded off with rose and clove. The jasmine is there, just at the edges, adding sweetness. It's giving me flashbacks of a friend of mine from college, who always seemed so sophisticated because she wore very expensive attar or rose and smoked clove cigarettes. As you might imagine, she smelled amazing and the best thing in the world was to borrow one of her sweaters. The myrrh here is really stellar. It's part churchy, part sexy—sacred and profane! I think this will also age magnificently, and I intend to hang on to my bottle long enough to find out.
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Red benzoin and frankincense with honey myrtle, osmanthus blossom, and coconut milk. In vitro: Warm, creamy coconut smell, hints of resins. Wet on skin: Frankincense initially has a slightly lemony smell (at least on me) so that comes out first. I get benzoin from the "is there vanilla in this? no?" thought that usually comes to mind when something has benzoin in it. Osmanthus has a honey-like scent in the first place and with the myrtle, it gives the blend a very, very warm and soft-edged floral smell. The coconut milk is definitely strong here, so if you don't like coconut and were hoping it would be way in the background, no such luck. (I love coconut though.) Drydown: Quite a bit of throw on this one. Besides the psychological effect of calling the benzoin red, this scent does convey red-orange-golden colours, like a sunrise. This is a very lemony frank! 20 min: Lemon custard? This smells tasty but I'm baffled at the lack of resinous business. 30 min: I do love osmanthus, and this is a good blend for it, playing well with the coconut. I like this quite a bit and look forward to really slathering it on once my testing-bottles period is over and I have both arms available. But frankincense stops being lemony and then...disappears? Unacceptable. I thought we were buds. Verdict: Sweet, almost-but-not-quite gourmand, bright coconut.
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A funereal nest of cinnamon and amomum, cassia and acanthus, spikenard and myrrh, three balsams and sweet frankincense. While I do get wafts of the resins and balsams in the background, overall this is a cinnamon candy scent on me. A very pretty cinnamon candy.
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Immortally vibrant olive, black pine, and bay laurel shimmering with rivulets of fresh olibanum sap. Please know that I'm testing this fresh from the mail with five other anniversary scents. The pine and sap are reminding me of Flying Kites, a favorite bptp lilith scent. The weather today has been cold and dark and damp and grey and THIS SCENT is the perfect antidote to such dour weather. A beautiful waft of outdoors that hints slightly at the Yule season but doesn't scream Xmas. I totally play favorites and based on the initial test, this was my current favorite anniversary fresh out of the mail. after having had this sit for a bit...now when it dries down, it reminds me very much of the blends from yule 2013's miskatonic festival series. salty, wintery, outdoorsy waft of crisp air. pretty but with an underlying something else. (and my series favorite has shifted to relics of herself)
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A celestial nectar redolent of honeysuckle-gilded amber with honeyed fig leaf, golden myrrh, helichrysum, and white cognac. I made this giant bottle order in a sort of fugue state of mad spending, and I'm not sure what tipped the balance to make me order this one. Like I like all these things, but what made me so sure I needed it? I don't know. Cognac, maybe, since I don't have any good non-wine booze scents. Wet: Fruity, sweet honey with darkness underneath it. Deep huffing does let me pick up on the cognac...the whole thing smells like a beautiful honeyed liqueur. 20 min: This is really well-blended, and delicious in exactly the way I like. Not like "hey you smell like food" but mysterious and mouth-watering, like something you never knew you wanted to eat. It's definitely a celestial-nectar scent, something that seems golden, lofty, and rare.
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Wild green lotus, orris root, bourbon vanilla, white sandalwood, and Egyptian musk. Wet: Oh, this is beautiful. The lotus is indeed green, sweet but fresh and dewy, almost melon-like? A bright jewel-green smell. Drydown: The orris and sandalwood come out with a bit of dryness, although the lotus note is so juicy that it's very much in the background. No sign of the musk. 20 min: I don't always like lotus because it goes to bubble gum so easily, but this is stunning, sweet without being Bubblicious at all. Orris, sandalwood, and musk all remain muted, supporting the luminous green note. 25 min: Spoke too soon! The musk does come out with the orris/sandalwood combo, making the scent a little less juicy and more sophisticated. Kind of dying over this. Do I need a second bottle? Panic!
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Clear water touched by a hint of honeyed pale rose, Sicilian lemon, and lily of the valley. Wet: Bright, clear water. So bright it bowls me over--not a quiet water scent at all. A sharp aquatic with white florals, the lemon and honey absent for now. Drydown: The lemon is not very, uh, lemony and more of a clean, cologne-like bitterness. 10 min: Rose, yes. Honeyed rose? LIES. 30 min: Okay, sure, yes, I do get the honey now, but it's very quiet. This stays pretty much as a clean aquatic with floral notes, not unlike Ogygia. Like a lot of aquatics, this is pretty unisex. I like this but I'm not sure it differentiates itself enough from other aquatic BPALs, except in that very striking wet phase, when it does seem exceptionally cool and refreshing, like a mythological fountain. The gentleness of the honey emerges late and it becomes more of a roses-and-seawater scent.
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An armor of gleaming, burnished amber, gold-flecked, brushed with a whisper of wild plum and blackcurrant. First! I've never been first before... --- In the bottle the blackcurrant and plum is very bright, and the amber very amber-y. It's pretty on point. Wet on skin the amber immediate warms and sweetens up, and the blackcurrant and plum start to darken a little and lose some of their tartness. After a while, the amber is lovely and golden and warm and cozy - as it always is for BPAL ambers for me! - and the blackcurrant and plum have mellowed into a dark, sweet frutiness. They smell like they've been simmered slowly for hours together, getting caramelized and mellow. I might need a backup of this!
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A glittering golden amber chypre whose facets reflect bright flickers of cardamom, galbanum, guaiac, neroli, and sharp cedar. To my nose, on my skin, this is a dead ringer for Obsession and it is GLORIOUS! I get mostly amber with this black pepper like spiciness that I can only assume is the cardamom. It's absolutely gorgeous. This is the scent of being curled up in front of a fireplace on a winter night after a terribly fancy dinner party.... perhaps naked on a fur rug. The throw is heavy enough to envelop you in the scent but not offend anyone near you, and it's one that only gets more beautiful with wear and heat.
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Peru balsam, myrrh, frankincense, and ashes. This is a beautiful light frankincense/myrrh resin incense, with the balsam keeping it from being too much like a Catholic church (seriously, sometimes with the right frankincense/myrrh blend I find myself looking around for a pew to genuflect in, but thankfully not with this one) and an underlying hint of ash -- not wood ash, but incense ash, the sort of scent that lingers when you've burned some resins on a charcoal. As it dries on my skin, the balsam starts to get more prominent -- up close, the balsam's pretty strong, although the edges of the throw keeps that nice incensy resiny vibe. It's a medium throw, present without being overwhelming. Overall, this is kept from being a true 'love' because my skin is amping the balsam a weeee bit too much, but that's just me being picky. If you, like me, love resins and are still on the quest for a good frankincense/myrrh incensy blend that doesn't send you into childhood flashbacks of Mass, give this one a try.
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Myrrh and black roses. Usually floral notes are just SO NOT for me, but I was very curious about black rose...so here goes! In decant: sniffing this, I certainly get a dark, heavy rose note. The myrrh is sort of there....kind of detect it, but I get mostly that heavy rose. This isn't a soft rose either....hence the blackness of it! On: The myrrh comes out a bit more on the skin. The rose is still very much there, but I tend to amp florals, so at the moment, it is all rose, but it isn't too bad. This coming from someone who can't do rose notes!! Drydown: This just seems a nice balance of both notes. This smells like something you would wear to an old gorgeous stone cathedral.....for mass possibly! If you like rose notes, get this.....if you are afraid of the incense part, don't be.....it isn't overpowering, but has a nice throw as well!
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Gleaming pomegranate seed and scarlet poppies. I expected this to be a bright red, juicy scent, but (on me at least) it's more subtle than that. The pomegranate and poppy are both present, but this is neither a fruity nor a floral scent. It's mildly sweet, a little sultry, almost spicy, very sensuous. It stays close to the skin and blooms as it dries, surprising me by getting stronger just as I think it's about to fade. Beautiful!
