Black Phoenix

[ancilla_morte]

Our signature oil. A dark, languid scent. Promotes hedonistic tendencies and extreme self-love. You won’t stop kissing mirrors for a month.

in the bottle, I fell in love when I smelled the rich marachino cherry smell. I was so excited!

I put it on and the cherry smell was still there for a little while, but it started to fade and blend into something...else.

I swear to god, my mind comes up blank sometimes when I try to identify scents.

It smells fizzy, like carbonated like a soda. and it now has a cherry/almond smell. it reminds me of those bottle caps candies that fizz in your mouth.
I'm trying to decide whether or not I like this. I'll have to give it another go some other time. but all in all it was a very interesting experience!

edited (a few minutes later nonetheless!) to say: um yeah..... I'M IN LOVE!!! It is definitely VERY strong and potent on my skin, which is why I think it overpowered me at first. I need to put less on than I did. but I love the after-smell of it. it seems to scent the air around me, and it reminds me of a very sweet sugary-cherry dragon's blood. and if you have read most of my reviews, you know how much I love dragon's blood. Edited November 7, 2005 by Shollin

[Nachtwulf]

Bottle: It didn't seem very distinguished in the bottle... kinda sweet, fruity or something, but it didn't step out and whack me in the face with its personality or anything.

 

Wet: Definitely more appealing. It's mostly what I'd call black cherries, and maybe something like vanilla musk. Mostly, though, it's thick, boozy, dark cherries.

 

Dry: Lo, and cinnamon has flared wings and set the phoenix on fire. It doesn't change -too- much from its wet stage, aside from developing that very cinnamony quality, that's much more prominent in the throw than it is when I get right down on it and snrfl my arm. The vanilla seems to have gone, so... I'm going to say cinnamon and cherries.

 

Final op: Mmm. I /do/ like it. I dunno if I need a bottle, or if I'm just going to be sure I have an imp around. I think I'd rather have Bengal or Chimera for cinnamon, but... it's sort of like the illicit love child of Chimera and Hollywood Babylon, so if you like either/both of those, Black Phoenix will probably float your biscuit just fine. If you don't like foody scents, you probably won't go for this one either.

[SeaMonkey]

This starts out smelling like Dr. Pepper lip gloss. It stays that way on my skin for about an hour, then softens to this absolutely brilliant almond vanilla musk, one of the only vanillas I can wear.

 

It has great lasting power and throw, and they're right, I CAN"T stop smelling myself.

[yeahbutnobut]

Black Phoenix

 

In the imp: dark bitter almonds.

Wet on skin: still almondy, but I think something sweet is bubbling up under the almond. I’ll wait for the almond veil to lift, and see what happens.

Dry: the almond fades…and something wonderful surfaces. It’s sweet, spicy, resinous, delicious. I’ll hazard a guess at what it smells like-I’m guessing amber? Spices of the unknown kind? I’m pretty sure there’s frankincense and myrrh in here as well, it has that resinous, incense like, smoky feel to it. It’s almost like Bastet, almost like the Lion’s amber-but darkened and smokier. It even has something buttery or oily about it, or maybe a bit boozy, like a buttery liqueur? It’s an unusual scent, but I really like it!

After a while: that odd ‘oily’ scent seems to fade, and now the scent is like dark resins, I’m pretty sure there’s either frankincense or myrrh here, possibly both, with amber (but I’m also sure that this may be ambergris-maybe a mix of both), and some other dark notes, and maybe some smoky vanilla? Maybe some black musk too? I’m pretty sure now that there is black musk in this. It is such an interesting fragrance.

After a few hours, the drydown is very similar to Haunted, which leads me to believe that black musk (or a deep musk of some kind) and amber are in this, and I’m pretty certain there’s myrrh here too, and possibly other resins and maybe vanilla or tonka. It’s also powdery now-but that’s no bad thing. It’s like a sophisticated dusting powder scented with exotic perfume.

Verdict: this is a very intriguing, mysterious, deep and dark. It starts off with almond, which fades to reveal a complex yet well blended array of resinous and sweet scents, yet darkened and almost smoky. I’m guessing that this contains amber (or ambergris?) and myrrh, maybe frankincense, possibly vanilla or tonka, and also a deep musk note-possibly a black musk as at some stages in the scent, it reminds me of a more complex Haunted. It’s really exotic and rich, quite slinky and sensual, and has amazing throw-on the bus today, I could smell sweet wafts coming from me and I thought ‘damn, this stuff smells amazing-is that really me? Yes it is!’ it’s an amazing scent, very heady-it is good for the cooler months (I think this would be a bit too much in summer)-I’m unsure if I want a bottle yet, but I really like this, I’m keeping the imp, and this is really growing on me!

[rinoastar]

Oh, you silly black phoenix. You're so full of cherries and...soap. Really nice soap, like soap at the airport Mariott or something, but soap nonetheless. I'm afraid I couldn't keep you, but you've already found a well-loved home with a friend who likes to smell of dark cherries. I can see the beauty of Black Phoenix on her, where it's all dark, juicy cherries and musk, with pretty-but-heavy florals, but on me, it's all soap all the time. Stupid chemistry! Black Phoenix was the first one I've ever had go soap on me. I think I'm tempted to stick with my pumpkins...

[ViolentKitten]

Marzipan and cinnamon first up, next a hint of something fizzy…grape juice? I'm kind of interested...but then...in comes sharp musk, powdery amber and soap notes. The man agreed with the soap bit, saying he thought it smelt like expensive soap, which may not be a bad thing, but this one is just too strong on me. And dang, the almond and cinnamon, as they sometimes do, are making me itch. We're over. I can handle some soap and powdery scents, but sadly, this one just doesn't work for me, and I really wanted to like the signature scent!

[Mary Mayhem]

It smells a bit like Coty face powder. (to me) It's nice, not on me, but it's nice. (:

 

ADDED Jan. 6:

 

When I got my first set of imp orders I was suffering from a hormonal chaos and Thanksgiving fullness. Honestly, not many of the oils I got liked me very much.

 

It's now, a month later that I revisit some of my oils and discover that Black Phoenix is just some sort of yay. I sift through my imps for a scent to put on and I almost always pick this one up. (sometimes it's a rose scent, sometimes Kali and sometimes Nosferatu.)

 

Now that this has sat a month it's grown, and it's grown on me. Never again will I automatically put up an imp for swap or sale until I let it grow a bit. It's warm and sweet, but not overbearing.

 

I can pick up sweet cherries, but it's a bit more tangy than just that. It's also got an alluring twist to it. I am still reminded of a little Coty Face Powder (though it's not powdery), but not so much so now. I am truely digging this scent!

 

I will most likely get a 5ml of this!

[WidgetAlley]

Lagniappe from the Lab-- hooray! I've always wanted to try it....

 

In the bottle: Almonds. By all that is holy, are those almonds. Unmistakable. But I really like almonds, so.... *sniffs* Mmmmm, so good. Maybe some spice underneath-- cinnamon? Smells like delicious marzipan or a cookie. There's something velvety in the background that makes me think there might be musk in this, but it's a very faint impression indeed. I like the golden-orange-red-purple colour of this, though, it looks like wine.

 

Wet: Almond, then a burst of something fruity-spicy with a slightly soapy edge. It's really familiar, yet I can't place it. Oooh, this is making my wrists tingle-- hope I'm not allergic! Wait, is that rose? Is there rose in this? Is that what's going bad on me? I'm catching a little incense in there too, but mostly it seems to be rose. Godsdammit! I'm getting beautiful hints of sweets and resins and musks behind it, but mostly it's just soap. Oh, how I hope it fades on the drydown.... it's awesome soap, really nice and softly floral, but... soap.

 

Wait, wait, is that the throw? Is it? Now I'm finding whiffs of something delicious, but it's very, very faint... blast. Sniffed from a few inches away, it's extremely light spicy rosey floral, with almost no direct "presence". It's a peripheral smell, almost more of an impression, of musky-sweet floral goodness. Hmm. There may be hope for this yet.

 

Dry: A little less soap, a little more spice. Roses and maybe myrrh or frankincense, now. Still no amber or musk or almond when I stick my nose right in it. Wah. I wanted this to be pure amaretto sex on me, not classy business woman. I'm hanging on to this, just to make sure it doesn't change at that time of the month and become what I was hoping for, and I'll try it on my hair and clothes and different spots on my body to see if that helps, but as it is.... I'll use it, but only for times when I want to smell clean, rather than sexy.

 

[edit] Bee and Flower. Bee and Flower rose soap. That's precisely what this smells like on me. And, adding insult to injury, on my mother? Ambery, musky, spicy, incensey, amaretto goodness.

 

Damn my chemistry. Damn it to pus-spewing Hell.

 

[edit] I have to edit this because the second time I tried this (when I was less stressed out), it worked! It hit me with a burst of almond and dried to a sweetly powdery almond-liqeuer, layered with amber, a light musk and something incensey that might be frankincense. A rich, expensive second-skin smell. Very, very nice-- my mum loves it too, and it's irrevocably "her" scent now, but that won't stop me snitching from her bottle occasionally!

Edited January 22, 2006 by WidgetAlley

[AngellicMystique]

I get sweet almonds and cordials. This scent is luxurious and self loving.

[olympia301]

 

Wow, this is the personality of BPAL in a bottle. Almond start, cherry undertones, resins ooy gooey resins sliding around and doing the bidding of the master perfumer. This one is a real classic BPAL scent. I often think of resins as being cellos in the orchastra, and nobody plays them better than Beth. Really, she is the one who can make any resin sit up and do her bidding.

 

This is a delightful, decadant, slightly medicinal (in a thoroughly naughty way I can assure you), long lasting, dark and giddy scent. Smells particularly good when you get it as a mere whiff, too.

[bibliophile]

Ah, what I would give for some of the almondy/amaretto notes so many of you seem to get from Black Phoenix. The scent loses all traces of sweetness when it hits my skin, becoming very resiny and woody. It reminds me a lot of how Aureus dried down on my skin. All in all, it's too dark and dry a scent for me.

[Nia]

I have already read comparisons of this to Amaretto. Amaretto is sweet and slightly hazelnutty. Black Phoenix has covered my need for an Amarguinha scent! Amarguinha ("little bitter one") is a bitter almond Portuguese liqueur which is only a tiny bit sweet, with a slight citrussy scent and aftertaste.

 

On the vial and wet, Black Phoenix smells _exactly_ like Amarguinha. Yummy.

 

When it dries, the smell becomes earthy, smoky, more subtle and more complex. This is almost like a female-to-male impersonation! It's not bubbly and edible anymore although the almonds are still there. It's only now that I get a hint of that licorice other people felt.

 

After having sniffed a total of 15 imps, I am considering this one for my first bottle!

[Hawke]

This smells soooo good in the imp. Good enough to eat or drink or at the very least wear, you know? Almondy, anise-y, spicy sweetness.

 

And then it touches skin.

 

How I wish I was getting black cherries and vanilla. Or amaretto. Or vanilla musk or any of the other lovely things some of you smell.

 

On me?

 

Powdery rose.

 

Yep. That's it. A rose that leapt off the bush, ground itself into a fine powder and sprinkled itself liberally over my wrists.

 

An attack rose.

 

I need rose repellent.

[furygrrl]

In the Imp: Almonds or cherries.

 

On Wet: Almonds or cherries - supersized!

 

Drydown: Woo-woo! Sweet, soapy, spicy, vaguely peppery - a complex and potentially addictive scent. It actually reminds me of how Thrills Gum used to taste (peppery/soapy/violet gum - little purple Chicklet-y guys that lived in a small yellow box). Great staying power, too. I slathered this on before bed last night, and woke up to spicy candy wrists this morning.

 

Overall: Another winner, another addition to the Big Bottle Wishlist. A 5/5 in this grrl's book.

[heartbeast]

Over at the candy factory, several dollops of marzipan suddenly had an epiphany. They leapt off the conveyor belt, screaming "Fuck all y'all, we don't want to be candy!", and ran out to the employee parking lot where they stole a Mustang convertible. They cruised downtown, stopped at a liquor store and got several bottles of cherry wine, then pulled over and picked up some hot-looking roses and honeycombs that were hanging out on the corner, looking for a good time. They drove these lovelies out to the deep dark woods and spent the night getting drunk on cherry wine, burning incense and making sweet love.

 

Almost turns to powder on my skin, but not quite. Honey and roses tend to do that, but something (the cherry?) keeps it just wet enough to prevent that from happening. Mister Heartbeast said "what is that scent you're wearing today, that smells of honey?" That is the closest he has come to actually complementing a BPAL, usually he either says nothing or just says the scent is too strong (and I'm far from a slatherer), so I count myself lucky. Me, the person I actually wear perfume for--I love it.

 

Note: I had gotten an imp of this, and it was in my "nice enough, but doesn't knock my socks off" column. Nevertheless, I bought a 5ml to go with the Red & Pink Phoenixes, because I have a thing for sets--and out of the 5ml it certainly did knock my socks off. This isn't the first time I've experienced this, and I sometimes get the impression that scents are sort of "cramped" in an imp, that they need a little more room to stretch out and show their stuff. This probably makes no sense chemically or logically, but it's my impression (hee! accidental pun!) nonetheless.

[Mountaingrrl00]

This one is case of a BPAL I admire but can't live with.

 

I admire the way the development of the scent morphs as if the wearer is theg the black phoenix rising from the flames! It starts out fiery: The almond top note sears my nose and makes my skin hot where I apply it. Then there's a sweet, hot effervescence, like sparks shooting up from my skin - what some have described as the Dr. Pepper effect. Then a smoldering phase, which is indeed langorous; I rather enjoyed this phase. Finally, a perfumey, ozoney burnt-wood drydown.

 

I had a weird psychological reaction. Something about the smell of this made everything else in my apartment seem shabby. I didn't like my own body smell when I was wearing Black Phoenix. Quite the opposite of an extreme self-loving blend.

 

I did not like the incense smell that lingered on my clothes. I'm going to have to swap this one.

[couscous]

I swapped this one away. I didn't want to, because I liked the idea of owning the "totem scent" of this amazing company. Ultimately, though, I was getting too upset looking at it and knowing that it would never work, and she had to go. It was a good thing, because I got a 5ml of black cat for it, and Black Cat is wonderful and helping me with my rose-phobia. I hope my swapee was happy to take BP and writes a glowing review. Wouldn't that be a nice way for things to end?

 

 

Black Phoenix was very, very much like Hecate on me. The almonds were very sharp, balanced by baby powder.

 

I would have kept it if it had turned to ALL baby powder, because I like that smell (oddly enough, I'm one of those people who rarely if ever get it from perfume-go figure!), but the soft of the powder clashed with the sharp, red-hot , syrupy almond. I smelled "off".

 

The dry- down was very much like Big Red bubblegum on me, and the pervasive smell of baby powder never blended in. It was like...lemon and tapioca. Not meant to be together.

 

I wish I had gotten marachino cherries like so many others, but I'm lacking in some sort of hormone, I guess.

 

I'm writing this review to contribute the Hecate comparison to those who may be waffling on this scent. If you enjoyed Hecate, I think you'll be okay and will enjoy this. If you didn't, then....you may want to take a chance anyway, but know that you might get a very similar result!

[GemmaCat]

I didn't get any particular fruit scents from this one when wet; just a deep, dark, and sensual scent.

 

However, once on it caused a very itchy rash, so I didn't get a chance to really sniff it. ;_;

 

My body chemistry strikes again, alas.

[konekoshadow]

Smelt very sharp, almost harsh in the bottle. As soon as it hit skin, it exploded very sharply, making me wince. After a few minutes, it crumbled into sharp/spicy baby powder. This is the only scent I felt the need to go wash off less then an hour after I put it on. I wanted to like it, but, my skin chemistry decided to not like it. Oh well.

[Imptress]

MMmmmm... almonds. I love the smell of almonds! It doesn't last long, though, drying down into a rich, sweet, resiny scent. I can't pick out any specific notes but do remember that at one point when I was wearing it I thought it smelled sort of like some kind of cough syrup... actually, what I always wanted cough syrup to taste and smell like: rich and sweet, not mediciney. I'm not sure about a big bottle yet, but this imp is definitely going to get used!

 

*ETA there is also definitely musk in this, though I didn't think it was particularly strong (well, duh, if I had to edit my review to add it! )

Edited January 22, 2006 by Imptress

[DeliberateAngel]

Smelled just like cherry cough syrup on my first sniff from the bottle.

First 20 minutes: Smells like sharp cherries and some naughty herb I cannot name. Its quite nice.

2-3 hours : Smells faintly like vague spices.

3 -5 hours: Smells like a lovely Damask Rose talcum powder my mother used to use or an older victorian perfume.

5 hours on: Powder. just baby powder.

Pretty oil. I just wish the cherry smell lasted longer and it didnt turn into baby powder.

It did burn a little when I applied it when I was fresh from the shower but not otherwise.

[Miss Lynx]

OK, at first this scent was on my no-go list, because so many people who reviewed it mentioned a strong almond/cherry note. I hate almondy scents with an unbending passion, and maraschino cherries, which is what a lot of cherry scents smell like to me, are not far behind. Ironically, I'm perfectly happy with eating almonds, and cherries of the non-maraschino variety, but I would not drink Amaretto if it was the only alcohol left in the entire world. But I digress.

 

Anyway, now that I've tried a lot of different scents, I've found there are a few here and there with those notes that I don't mind, partly because they tend to be among those aggressive top notes that fade away really fast. Voodoo and Bastet both have almond, and Blood has cherry, and I like all those - I just avoid sniffing them for the first few minutes. So all things considered, I decided to give Black Phoenix a try.

 

First impression: ALMOND. Almond like a Very Almondy Thing. Almond like a cyanide poisioning scene from an Agatha Christie novel. One can almost see the bluish corpse on the floor with its tongue sticking out, and that is probably what I will look like if I have to smell this again.

 

But of course, almond usually fades quickly. So I try again in a few minutes, and get... ALMOND! Hey, no fair! Let's wait another 5 or 10 minutes. How about now? ALMOND! What demonic force is enabling the almond to hang in there this long?

 

It does eventually fade, but it takes its time. Even as it finally starts to die down, it seems like it's clinging to my skin by its fingernails, refusing to quite let go. But eventually it does... and leaves an absolutely gorgeous spicy incensey scent that I really like! Now why couldn't that have happened a little sooner, damn it?

 

Hmmm. I think I will have to try this again sometime and see how it goes. The eventual result is divine, but I could seriously do without the initial almond attack. Cyanide is not a "me" scent (if I was going to poison someone, I'd go with arsenic because you can feed it to them little by little so that they slowly sicken and you can pass it off as natural causes). I could see myself developing a love/hate relationship with this scent, and which will triumph remains to be seen.

 

Grade: Initial: D, Eventual: A-

[cupide430]

Black Phoenix

 

Cherry booze. This is very strong cherry booze with an almond undertone to it as well. A slight bit of powder is coming out as it dries, but this stays a mostly cherry booze scent on me.

[mandragora]

I agree with cupide430's post above. At first sniff, I thought cherry liqueor. Very strong and potent. On application, there's boozy cherry and almonds. Drydown, it turned sort of powdery, but nice powdery.

 

Very intriguing scent. But it's not me.

Edited February 12, 2006 by mandragora

[Thaleia]

Wow, now how long did I have to wait to get a frimp of this? I'm all about the narcissism and kissing mirrors and dancing in front of them - heck, I do it without BPAL's signature blend all the time - but whatever helps me and gives me an excuse to do it randomly ...

 

In the vial, I'm getting maraschino cherries. This may or may not mean that this'll turn out to be jasmine, as Luna starts out as cherry/almond on me and dries down to a pure jasmine (which leads me to believe that too much jasmine can smell like cherry).

 

Okay, definitely cherry on me. Sweet cocktail cherries whose stems I love tying into knots with my tongue. (Show of hands, how many of you can do that?) Then a sweet, creamy almond à la Dana O'Shee or Alice appears over the cherry.

 

Oh my God! It's Black Cherry Vanilla Coke!

 

I like this enough to keep the imp, and I may get a 5ml in time. 7/10.