Blood Pearl

[Rhowan]

Lustrous, sanguine, soft and lavish: soft orris, blood musk, and coconut.

I was so excited to try this because I LOVE Black Pearl!

In the imp and wet on my skin - ORRIS big time! I can't get past it's smell. As it dries down though, the musk is peeking it's head out. I can't smell the coconut as it's own note but the sweetness is coming from the coconut.

Completely dried down, I find that Blood Pearl is still an overly sweet floral on me. Don't get me wrong - it dries down very nice and subtle - but what is left is too sweet for my taste.

While Blood Pearl is not for me, I think it would make a damn sexy perfume for and evening date in the spring or summer, sitting out on a patio for dinner. Nice throw, it is there but it is subtle, long wear. Maybe I will give this a couple of more tries - there is just something nice about it.

[ladymissspyder]

This is pretty much a dry, musky coconut on me from start to finish. Sexy in a subtle way.

[cameroncrazed]

In the imp: Did I accidentally pick up Black Pearl?

 

Wet on skin: Still similar to Black Pearl; predominant scent is coconut.

 

Dry on skin: A deeper, somewhat spicier, less floral version of Black Pearl. Deep coconut.

 

Overall: 8/10. As much as I adore Black Pearl, the floral note in it is very strong and can be very heady. Blood Pearl is a deeper less floral version. Black Pearl feels more sexy while Blood Pearl is a more comforting scent. Not as long lasting as Black Pearl, but still is good for hours (I'm at 5 hours now, it's starting to die on me). I like.

[Rouge]

A very pleasant scent but unfortunately also a very faint one.

 

In the bottle - Warm, dusty orris with a slight overlay of musk.

 

Wet on the skin - Much the same as in the bottle. I find myself having to use an awful lot of the oil before I can actually smell it.

 

Dry down - There's been little development in the scent itself except for a faint sweetness as the coconut begins to emerge.

 

If Blood Pearl were any stronger I'd perhaps call it piratical, but as it is, I'm reduced to gazing into the imp with a faintly puzzled expression and slurring "Where has the rum gone??"

[edenssixthday]

Blood Pearl - I have a new best coconut friend!!! I didn’t know what to expect when I tried this blend, not having read the description first. When I do read the description, I can’t figure out why I am so nutty-crazy about this scent. The notes in it sound nice, but not mind-blowingly spectacular, so this must be a major case of synergy where these three notes work together to create something greater than the sum of all three, because HOT DAMN am I in love with this scent! It’s heavy on the coconut and heavy on the musk and heavy on the orris and the three blend together so incredibly gorgeously well, like I never would have guessed. This scent does not change at all whether it’s in the vial, freshly applied, dried down, or toward the end of it’s life on my skin. It’s stable, consistent, powerful, and so very pretty. It’s also pretty strong, and I will be very careful when applying this so I don’t overwhelm others with it. This is definitely going on my list of bottles to buy. I’m so glad it’s a GC!

[valentina]

I recieved Blood Pearl as a frimp from a forum member, and I sniffed it in the imp and immediately tried it out, not knowing what was in it. It smelled sweet and dark and very appealing in the imp. But once on my skin, that King Kong called orris took over the entire blend. Then the coconut moved in, and coconut gets weirdly bitter on my skin. In the end, the dry-down was OK, but it was a pungent powdery scent, and not really my style. I think that for anyone who can wear orris and coconut beautifully, this is really a scent to consider.

[maijasu]

 

That about sums it up. I smell no coconut, just headache-inducing, powdery department-store perfume. I assume the powdery note is the orris, as I have no problems with musk or coconut. Oh well.

[HennaFairy]

bottle:

musk and what smells like vetiver - yuck!

 

overall:

I didn't even want to try this one on…

 

(I have had some - at least 1 - blends with vetiver work, but not when it's the most prominent scent.)

 

rating: 2/10

[karengypsy]

In the vial: Coconut and something sourish.

 

On me: I think the scent that I didn't like in the vial was blood musk. This isn't a bad scent, I just don't think that the coconut goes well with that sort of tang in the musk.

 

Verdict: Not for me.

 

Rating: 2/5

[Miss Lynx]

This has a strange mix of warm and cool notes -- orris always smells cold to me, but musk is very warm, and the coconut is just... odd. The combination of all three is not unpleasant, but a bit discordant and doesn't really seem to harmonize well.

 

After it settles in for a while, the disparate notes do seem to eventually blend together, into a slightly sweet musk, which isn't bad, though it now seems to be fading quickly. Overall, OK but probably not for me.

 

Grade: C+/B-

[themerrybaker]

I must be getting major orris from Blood Pearl, because it is not musky and I detect no coconut.

 

 

 

This is a dry, dark, scent on me. I like it but don't love it.

[theseagrows]

hm. i have tested this twice and am on the fence about it. it does evoke the memory of black pearl, but since i love black pearl so much this one doesn't really compare for me. it does smell good, but red musk sometimes gives off a hippy smell, and this is one of the scents where it does.

 

hm. i have tested this twice and am on the fence about it. it does evoke the memory of black pearl, but it's less floral and a bit spicy and more subtle. since i am a black pearl lover, this one doesn't really compare for me. it does smell good, but red musk sometimes gives off a hippy smell, and this is one of the scents where it does.

[The_Merf]

In the imp: I've seen those threads that debate the presence of coconut in Perversion, and I don't know if they've ever been settled, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was coconut there, because I smell a great similarity between that scent and Blood Pearl in the imp.

 

Wet: This is all coconut on me. I guess I really don't dislike it as much as I thought I did. I don't detect the musks, so it must be the orris--and I'm having a hard time describing what it smells like--that is adding some depth here.

 

Drydown and wear: This becomes "coconut + something," and I have to admit that I quite like it. It becomes more of a skin scent and lingers. This one is hard for me to get a handle on, but I look forward to going through the imp and trying it again.

Edited July 13, 2006 by The_Merf

[Tesseljoan]

I was surprised to see Blood Pearl didn't have any Dragon's Blood in it. DB and I get along, but we're not really best friends, so I tend not to wear most 'blood blends'. This one sounded intrigueing to me.

 

The coconut is there, but it's not "HELLO! I am COCONUT" which it sometimes does on my skin. This is a warm blend to me, with dries down to a nice, slightly powdery musk.

 

And even if Beth secretly did put in some dragon's blood, I don't detect it.

Edited July 27, 2006 by Tesseljoan

[Nemesister]

my bottle of this might have aged but all i'm getting from it is violet. loads of sweet soapy violet i'm sure this used to be coconutty and musky but it's parma violets now! (you do get those over there, yeah?)

 

i'm loving this bottle....might need another one

[mountainwitch]

I was afraid of the “Pearls” at first because I figured the coconut would make them all smell like suntan lotion. Boy, was I wrong.

 

The coconut has a certain crispness, like a real fresh coconut split open and smelling of milk and shell. It softens into a sweet, warm, definitely red fragrance, hinting a bit more at that suntan-lotion fragrance I was dreading, but never really crossing that line. It remains different, striking, even sexy.

[minnalavender]

Got Blood Pearl as a frimp from the labbies. Thank the blessed Goddess! This immediately jumped up into my top 10.

 

Maybe because I'm a fourth gen Californian and spent much of my misspent youth slathered in suntan lotion and little else, anything that can combine the sweet scent of coconut with exotic spices and muskiness and oh! all kinds of notes I'll never have a nose sophisticated enough to identify but my body knows are sexy is gonna make me feel really effing good.

 

This is so sensual and sophisticated and sweet and strange - a bunch of paradoxes that come together beautifully. I love it. It just WORKS on me.

 

Beth is a genius. Srsly.

[Ancientgirl]

This was among a gift of freebies from my last Switch Witch---thanks, Tsarina!

In the bottle: Heady musk, plus that uniquely BPAL coconut aura. I'm not good with florals, so I'm not sure I'd know orris from any other note. In any case, I don't get much floral at first.

Just on: The coconut mellows a bit and lets the musk take center stage. I don't so much get "soapy," but there is a bit of a "waxy" feel to this scent. It's not unpleasant, just an odd association I have with certain fragrances, especially those containing vetiver.

Dry down: This is a very sophisticated scent, almost too sophisticated for my tastes, if there weren't that subtle note of coconut. The scent reminds me of a Gauguin painting.

3+ hours later: Now that it's mellowed some, the floral finally comes out, and the fragrance becomes much sweeter. This phase lasts really long on me; I wore it to bed, and still smelled of it in the morning.

Verdict: it's not my best scent, but worth hanging onto.

Ancientgirl

[neuilly]

A little goes a long way with this one. It's mostly orris and coconut on me...not noticing the musk but that doesn't mean anything. I keep going back and forth on this. I keep getting whiffs and loving it but then I get another whiff and think it's just ok. More testing must be done! Saving the imp to try again later. But it's definitely I combination I've never smelt before.

[Concupiscentia]

Soft, floral, reminds me of violets, but red violets if they would exist. It's a bit powdery/soapy on me. Quite clean and not sexy, but still nice.

[kunoichi]

I am not sure what to make of this from the vial; it is smooth, dark and a little sweet. On my skin, this becomes darker and loses it’s sweetness, presumably to the musk though it is not like any of the other BPAL musk scents I’ve smelled, and I can not pick out any of the notes it is so smoothly mixed together. After a few hours on my skin this is a very soft and rounded scent from the faded fragrance of the musk mixed with the other scents.

[Loligo]

Um, it's sawdust. Soapy, sour sawdust... plus some musk. I don't smell any coconut at all, at any time. No, wait, I've had it on for about four hours, and now I'm getting a tiny whiff of it. I've long suspected that orris had it in for me, now I know for sure. Blood musk is an ifffy note, too; it's nice in Blood Moon, but I can tell that the other ingredients there are working kind of hard to restrain it.

 

I'm so disappointed, because the good reviews for this one sound gorgeous.

[aimeceleste]

Warm, sexy, and sweet. I love anything with musk and/or coconut, this was right up my alley!

[luna65]

Thanks to bloodpoppies for the imp.

 

Imp: Really sweet, I can sense the resinous quality to the musk, but the coconut sort of balances it out, it's less refined and more raw.

 

Skin: Wow, orris is really aquatic on me. I mean, I'd noticed this same characteristic in Black Pearl, but this is x10.

 

Drydown: The musk tones down the saltiness of the orris, but the coconut pretty much retreats on me, which is sort of disappointing, but this is an intriguing type of scent; I don't think I've ever worn this type of musk before, it's definitely interesting in the way that it reacts with my chemistry.

[ScrimHazard]

Whoah! I received Blood Pearl as a frimp in a swap and I never thought it would be for me. I'm just not a summery scent kind of person and with coconut in the description I steered clear. However, this is not summery to me...it smells like what a Lush store smells like from the outside...you know as you're walking past and it just wafts at you and you really just want to buy every single product at once so you can duplicate the smell at home? Yeah...that smell.

 

It goes all floral with red musk. Dang this is nice! The sweetness wears off and it is pleasingly sexy, clean, and sophisticated. Who would have thought coconut could be worn to the operal...oh, this is a chamelian of a scent!