Lump of Coal

[harmonyfb]

This is the truly sinful scent of a sticky, thick, dark and rich fudge brownie.

This smells like...brownie batter.

In the bottle, wet, dry...it's an amazing feat to have completely reproduced that particular smell.

And yet, it is incredibly vile as a personal fragrance. Bleah. I'm glad I got to sample it, but boy, howdy, I could never actually wear this on my person.

Plus, it made me hungry. ::is craving brownies:: Edited September 21, 2007 by Shollin

[miss apple]

Love, love, love Lump of Coal! In the bottle it smells exactly like those molton lava cakes where the middle is all rich, hot, gooey, chocolate. Once on it doesn't really change though after a few hours though it does mellow a bit so that every now and then I get wafts of brownies.

There's the barest hint of something perfumey that keeps this from being a total foodie blend.

 

Being Naughty smells damn good!

[hangingfire]

In the bottle: Yep, fresh-mixed brownie batter. Cocoa, bits of chocolate, flour, sugar, vanilla ... makes me want to bake.

 

On, wet: Still brownie batter. The vanilla aspect of it is more pronounced; no surprise, as my skin amps vanilla and then hangs onto it for an eternity.

 

Drydown: One thing I've noticed about every BPAL blend I've tried with any kind of chocolate note in it is that the chocolate fades very fast. Lump of Coal is no exception; the strong cocoa-chocolate note has now faded down to a faint hint of cocoa, and what's left is a very thick, sugary vanilla. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I have SO MANY vanilla scents -- if I want a foody vanilla, I'll wear Beaver Moon (girly vanilla = Antique Lace; womanly vanilla = Serpent Qui Danse; sophisticated vanilla = Black Opal).

 

Still, I love the bottle impression. I plan to keep this and use it in a diffuser as a room scent, because it's very tasty-smelling. If you were showing a house for sale, I'd put a big dab in a scent ball or diffuser before bringing in prospective buyers.

[ladymeshel]

I wanted to like this. I paid too much for a bottle because I was so certain I would love it. In the bottle it smells like heaven...a really rich chocolate brownie. On my skin, chocolate plastic. I think I'm going to imp it out to trade for other scents.

[graycat]

like all 29 people said before me, this smells just like brownies. it does have staying power and doesn't change on dry down but......i already have bliss, velvet and 13.

 

i think i'm chocolate scented out, which is odd for me considering i'm a foody bpal fanatic but realistically i'm never going to use up 4 bottles of chocolate themed oils..

[blueroses]

In the bottle, LoC is rich, fudgy chocolate icing or brownies. Unfortunately, I can already tell that it will go funny on my skin; there's that lurking note o' plastic.

 

Wet, dry, and faded: This really is much more rich than BPAL's other chocolate scents. It's very sweet and fudgy. I would love this if not for the scent weirdness. I'm not a fan of BPAL's other chocolate blends, but this is good.

 

Sadly, the plastic smell doesn't wear off, so this one doesn't work for me.

[malanna]

I got this in a swap with brownbear.

 

I thought I would love this. I love food, foody scents have the highest success rate on me, and I love chocolate. Lump of Coal started out smelling like a combination of the chocolate in Bliss--a yummy milk chocolate bar--and the chocolate in 13--a perfumed chocolate (to me, nauseatingly so)--with a bit of a bias towards 13. Now, I can say that same chocolate gets slightly buttery, but it still has a perfumed tinge to it. If I sniff and think about it, I can say that it smells like brownies, but the perfume-y aspect just won't go away. Ah well. I guess the Lab knew what it was doing when I didn't get Lump of Coal in my Inquisition order.

[yeahbutnobut]

Lump of Coal

 

In the imp: BROWNIES!!!! This smells exactly like home baked, rich, chocolatey, delicious dark fudge brownies. I hope it smells like this on my skin…I adore brownies!

Wet on skin: it still smells of chocolate brownies, but now these are brownies made with milk chocolate chips-the scent is lighter.

Dry on skin: mmm, yum! There's a hint of that odd dusty note I get in other foody BPAL scents, including Bliss, but this is richer and more rounded than Bliss. It's not the pure brownie hit I got in the imp, but now it smells an assortment of other chocolate goodies-like double chocolate cookies made with cocoa powder and Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate chips, with perhaps a hint of vanilla and marshmallow! But sometimes when I sniff, I also get sugary chocolate fudge, or even sometimes hints of rich dark chocolate. This is what I wanted Bliss to be-a full, satisfying chocolate experience.

After a while: ah yes, this is exactly what I hoped Bliss would be-after 30 mins it smells like pure milk chocolate. Like Galaxy or Cadbury's. There are hints of doughy scents like brownie and cookie in here, as well as sugary fudge, but these are now covered with lashings of sweet milk chocolate.

Verdict: this is what I wished Bliss was…unfortunately that particular scent went flat and bland on me. however, this scent is much more satisfying and well rounded, a richer, fuller chocolate scent. The scent in the imp is PURE ESSENCE OF BROWNIE. I wish it stayed like that on the skin-as it does develop the slight dusty smell I get from some foody BPALs, but the chocolate scents that develop are equally delicious. Chocolate fudge, cookies, chocolate sauce and 'rocky road' ice cream with marshmallows, before it becomes the scent of pure milk chocolate with a hint of fudge, decadent and delicious. I want to eat myself! This is the perfect scent to wear when I get chocolate cravings-it's all the brownie decadence, with none of the calories!

Edited January 28, 2006 by yeahbutnobut

[blood*rose*flowers]

Decant Group:

In the imp:

On one level I get a scent like Fruit Moon on the other I get Brownie Mix

 

On wet:

Yup that puppy is brownies but only for a few seconds. Now its something else I can't quite place. Briefly I got that odd note that made Fruit Moon a bit sore on me. The chocolate came back but didn't hold its more sour with a touch of chocolate.

 

Drydown:

This is sadly why I don't wear chocolate. This has a sour plastic scent on me with weirdly a touch of that chocolate still added. Not me.

[zillah37]

In the vial, Lump of Coal is pure chocolate bliss. It's warm, fudgy brownies. I'm not usually a chocolate person, especially Beth's chocolate scents, but Lump of Coal is just pure bliss. It's a gorgeous chocolate scent on my skin and it stays that way. It's got a decent throw, but it's not overpowering. I did manage to get a bottle of this and I'm so very, very happy that I did.

[aidenraine]

Ok, so I expected this to be synthetic chocolate crap.

However, I am ...er... on the rag right now so I also expected to secretly drink the whole thing down.

*Cough*

 

It's... delicious. I can't imagine wearing this straight, it must be layered with other things. It's definitely rich, gooey chocolate and nothing else. I'm not sure I really want to smell like that.

 

I need to go acquire a real brownie now. This stuff IS naughty.

[Ina Garten Davita]

I don't like chocolate notes and they hate my skin but Lump of Coal is the lovely exception. It smells like the perfect rich brownie batter in the bottle and that scent remains on my skin without going funky. I don't know if this is something I'd wear all the time, but for a chocolate craving, this little bottle is going to be my new best friend.

[Tramp]

So I don't know how Beth managed to fit a pan of brownies fresh out of the oven into a little bottle but that is exactly what this smells like. Dark, rich, chewy brownies. It is more of a coco or dark chocolate smell rather than being overly sweet. Any way you look at it - it is good

Edited March 8, 2006 by Tramp

[slave1]

In Bottle: Fudge

 

On Skin: YUM! Yes, yum… but “would I wear this as a perfume” yum? Not really. I have an old bottle of a scent called “Kisses” made by some random company, which smells like Hershey’s Kisses. My husband HATES when I wear it, because it just makes him want chocolate and it annoys the heck out of him since it’s such a tease. Anyway, this is pure sticky ooey-gooey brownies. It even smells warm like they just came out of the oven. It is truly decadent. I also think it would be a good scent for layering. For instance… I have Snowblind on my wrist and Lump of Coal inside my elbow… when I blend them together it’s a lot like Spooky. Very nice!! Or maybe mix it with Kabuki and have chocolate covered cherries! Anyway, a great scent I wouldn’t mind keeping an imp of for special occasions. As it dries down, it does get a bit powdery and not as ooey-gooey.

[msthrope]

i'm like a rabid dog when i wear this; hungrily sniffing and licking (well...ok...not really, but damn close) myself. this is THE most amazingly rich, dark, dense chocolately smell; it's the kitchen come alive when you are a child eagerly looking up at the table, your hand getting slapped away as you reach for the still cooling brownies.

 

i received this in a swap a little while ago, but made the mistake of trying it for the first time last week. lump of coal on a chocoholics' wrist when she's given up chocolate for lent is surely some legal precedent for the temporary chocolate deprevation insanity defense when she commits mayhem in the wake of the scent.

[LittleGreyKitten]

Sigh, looks like my review of this got eaten. Anyway, I lurve this. I didn't think I would at all- smelling of a brownie didn't appeal at all to me. Dunno why, but chocolate scents just didn't excite me whatsoever. So anyway, I ended up swapping for a half imp of this regardless.

 

OH MY FLIPPING GOD. Lumpy is amazingly delicious. There's something absolutely indescribable about what this blend does when it hits my skin- yes, in the imp it's all brownie, but on the wrist it becomes Something Else. Something amazing. Something that's not even all that foody. Very sweet, and yes, a bit chocolatey, but holy cow whatever it is that is the primary scent is and . What is it? I can't even put into words what it smells like.

 

So I decided to bust out my Bliss imp that I'd also never tried, simply sniffing it and thinking "Eh. Hershey's." And it does the same thing- not quite as much as Lumpy, it stays a little true-er, but it still has that drop-dead-delicious under aroma.

 

Yeah. Off to sell my firstborn for more. At least Bliss is a good similar scent- it's just a little more chocolatey on my skin, and unless I have both Lumpy and Bliss on I can't tell the difference.

[GemmaCat]

In the imp, this is pure, unadulterated chocolate brownie: gooey, soft, and so-so bad for you. *salivates*

 

On my skin, I get a slightly bitter note beneath the chocolate, like when a small amount of cake batter burns on the outside of the cookie-sheet.

 

As it starts to drydown, it turns slightly perfumey, almost as if there's a trace of florals in the mixture, but then it settles down to gooey chocolate once more. Very nice, but oddly enough this doesn't smell as nice as Bliss on my skin. Still a keeper, though.

[Ajila]

In the bottle - Chocolate and black cherries, much like a black forest gateau.

Wet on me - Initially dark chocolate with a slight edge of orange. There is also a suspicion of ashes/dust, but mostly that's hidden by the chocolate.

Dry on me - At first it becomes ashes. Maybe an hour or so later they go and the rich scent of molten chocolate returns.

[elspeth]

First sniff: Smelled EXACTLY like warm fudge brownies!

After putting it on I realized that my skin doesn't like chocolate as much as I do. It would be a great scent to put in a locket and it seems to stay around for quite a bit. In fact it made me very hungry. My bf smelled me coming to greet him after work and thought I had been baking.

[roesmoker]

After 13, Dia de los Muertos, Devil's Night and Misk U were busts on me, I thought I'd never like a foody scent that wasn't vanilla. Then LoC came along and Oh. My. GOD this is good. I'm shocked at how much I like it. Yes, it does make me crave brownies. I don't care because it smells so addictively great. For some reason (probably there's a chemical/hormonal explanation for this) smelling/wearing it makes me happy. Stays absolutely true from the bottle to my skin and lasts forever. Yum!! (If only I had a bottle instead of one lonely imp!)

[filigree_shadow]

Brownie batter. That exact scent. At the stage where the powdery bits are still clinging to the sides of the bowl and you're mixing in the eggs. (I'm not the only one who buys brownie mix in a box, right?) There is something else in there, too, but I can't place it. Something sweet.

 

It changes a LOT after 10-15 minutes. It goes a little nutty, and it softens up a whole lot. No more brownie batter. Still chocolatey, but for some reason it reminds me more of Quik than brownies. (I'm not the only one who uses chocolate milk powder out of a tin, right?)

 

I like this scent, but I have no idea what to do with it. I like foody blends, but I want to smell reminiscent of food, not exactly like it. Maybe someone will recommend some good layering ideas over in the Layering thread.

 

(And now you all know my secret shame: I can't cook.)

[k00kaburra]

In bottle: Rich dark chocolate - nearly black as coal! This is far more delicious, however. It's very rich and if it was food, you just know it'd be warm and gooey.

On me: Chocolate brownie extraordinaire. *****

[luxuria]

I love every BPAL chocolate blend I've tried. I was sure when I opened my Trading Post parcel that I'd gotten the chocolate blend to end all chocolate blends, and the initial sniff from the bottle supported that, but my skin just ate it then regurgitated it as faintly moldy but sugared plastic. Where did the deep, rich, velvety, but not-too-sweet chocolatety brownie goodness go? I don't know what happened--chocolate is notoriously great on my skin, but this was a stinker. I've tried it again hoping it was just a hormone issue, but months later, it still comes out the same. Ah well, at least I got a spiffy Naughty shirt out of the deal.

Edited April 20, 2006 by luxuria

[modesty_blaise]

So, so amazing!

 

And even a tad bit better than Bliss (but I guess Bliss will have to do when I run out..)

[zankoku_zen]

Bliss and Vice never got along with my skin. Centzon Totochin gave me that dusky winey cocoa note which I adore... but I wanted something that spelled chocolate.

 

This is it.

 

I smelled like the richest, gooiest, fudgiest chocolate brownie ever made. I smelled like chocolate.

 

It was most appreciated by the boy.

 

I do have to admit that it may be a bit much. It had incredible throw on my skin (7+ hours). I love it but I wouldn't want to wear it too often because... after 7 hours of chocolate scents, you really do start craving chocolate.

 

I did try to nibble my own skin after I put it on though. It was THAT good.