Parlement of Foules

[blktauna]

Medieval romance and courtly love. White rose and soft resins.

I was so hoping for this scent as it's two of my favourites, rose and resin.

Sadly this had no rose at all for me. None. I barely smell a touch of frankincense and that's it.
I'm afraid it will have to move on.

[mothglitter]

Absolutely lovely. It's not as powdery as I imagined it would be, although there is a soft powdery hint. I definitely see a dimly lit cathedral, a gentle rainshower falling outside. Pious prayer, swinging censers, holy chants, ladies & noblemen in rustling brocade, their hair adorned with white rosebuds.

 

This is a true white rose with a soft, woodsy resin incense. On me, it takes a slightly powdery turn, though only faintly. Strangely enough, it gets a delicately sharp sweetness to it, but the soft rose & earth resin keep it calm and smooth. A truly gorgeous scent!

[Delirium1009]

2008 version:

 

In bottle/imp: Thick, sweet, dark resin.

 

Immediately on skin: This smells like sharp white roses and thick pieces of molasses scented resin. The roses smell fresh, but there’s definitely something sharp there, and the resin smells almost like molasses or caramel… though darker, like it was burned.

 

After a little while: This softened on my skin within a few minutes of putting it on. It turned into fragrant, fresh white roses and a bit of sweet golden resin. The scent is very fresh, and the resin is not thick at all any longer. The white rose is just slightly warmed by the scent of the soft resins.

 

Overall Impressions: This is a very pretty scent, though it had to settle into my skin before I got the soft white rose and delicate resins in the description. It’s very feminine and fresh, and not overpowering in the least. It’s slightly sweeter too than a regular rose perfume would be.

[strangemodegirl]

I love the smell of fresh roses, one of my all time favorite scents, and I keep trying, but every rose scent I have tried just turns to horribly sweet "fake" rose on my skin. Sadly, this was no exception. I was hoping the resins in this would help balance the rose out a bit. Nope.

All I got was rose, actually, it didn't change at all from wet to dry on me, it just ended up smelling like one of those awful rose air fresheners.

 

Off to my sales page in hopes that it will find a loving new home.

[euterpe414]

this is the 2008 version

 

My skin chemistry has been going through some changes, I think, and rose blends have been faring much better with me in the past year (thank goodness b/c I love the smell of roses!). I had been hesitant to try this in years past, but this time around I went ahead and ordered a bottle. This is what I wanted Rose Cross to be on me (that sadly turned sour and powdery)- dark, deep resins with sweet rose wafting over it. This blend is just gorgeous, and indeed very 'classical' in feel. I picture a very ornate rose carved into wood in a church, with the smell of incense wafting around me. Love, love, love this one, and I'm glad I got a chance to try it this year!

 

[vegasblueblood]

I find that I always love the Lab's rose blends and Parlement of Foules is really lovely. It's all soft white rose with a hint of resins to ground it. It's so incredibly ladylike and courtly. The resins add a touch of thickness to this, almost like molasses as someone mentioned, though with a spicy woodiness instead of plain spice. Really beautiful and a must for any rose fans. The rose stays true on my skin and doesn't morph at all. I think this will age really nicely because of the resins.

[maribouquet]

The rose in this is just lovely, but sadly the resin notes are not agreeing with me and I'm getting a strong pickle-molasses scent.

[robozwil]

In the bottle - lovely roses. Very feminine scent

 

Wet on skin - The roses are abundant but the resins are more pronounced now. As it is drying I keep getting a whiff of something familiar. It takes a minute or two to hit me but it reminds me of Nivea lotion. I need to check to see if that has rose in it.

 

I can't confirm the Nivea similarity because the ingredients just say "fragrance" Could be just a weird memory thing

 

Dry on skin - The rose scent has diminished considerably with the resins being more dominant now - It's still a strong incense/floral scent as long as you smell close to the skin. I can't see myself wearing this for an entire day

[fairnymph]

This is a review of the 2008 version.

 

In the bottle: Rose - slightly sweet and spicy.

 

Wet: Stronger overall, but the resin especially is more distinct. It's sweet and a little powdery.

 

Dry: It's a little less powdery. The rose is beautifully fragrant and reminiscent of Peacock Queen. A smidgen of oakmoss emerges faintly after a few hours.

 

Summary: Delicious, full-bloom rose and sweet, mildly herbal resins. Still a tiny bit powdery, and a bit dry and warm for me. Strong throw and good lasting power.

[LunaLovegood]

Wow this thing is STRONG.

Smells like roses and a bit of spice. Its lovely really, but too strong and rosey for me, so an imp will suffice for me.

[bryghtrose]

2008

 

OMG- this is happiness in a bottle!

It's straight up roses with resin, and it's gorgeous! There's a little throw which is very welcome. I just love this sceent

[grimms_creed]

2008

 

In the imp: soft, fragrant, fresh roses, still on the bush

 

On me: So far as I am concerned, no one need ever make a rose fragrance again now. It's done. This is - for me - is the ultimate rose. The soft resins provide a beautiful backdrop for the freshest, most fragrant rose I have ever smelled. Not much throw, but I can solve that by applying more. I sense a bottle purchase in the very near future....

[MaeKitty]

In the bottle: Wierd... white grape juice?

On Me: The juice becomes a rose quickly and is beautiful. I love this. It's perfect for its name. It's so very pretty, pure and innocent. I love this.

[lefthandmade]

Definitely roses although maybe a little sharper than the red one as it goes on.

 

It softens as it starts to dry and it's definitely a white scent, this. I'm not usually a huge fan of the white ones but this one is good, with potential to become gorgeous with a little patience on my part. After all i love roses.

 

Dry: Oh I was right. It softens quite a bit and this is like white velvet. Silk velvet, smooth and warm and brilliant at the same time, and very romantic.

 

Absolutely beautiful. It was a great move to get this one unsniffed.

[binaryfaerie]

Parlement of Foules smells like dates and old dried roses to me, with a hint of spiciness lingering underneath. This is a very warm scent. Soft and sweet, but kind of old ladyish on me. Too bad, I normally really like rose scents.

[Rovylern]

In the imp: Flowers, but not roses specifically, and a hint of incense.

 

Wet: Now it's rose, a light, tangy rose with fresh greenery. There's nothing that says resin or incense anymore.

 

Drydown: This is my perfect rose scent. Not a touch of powder the way many roses go on my skin, light and fresh, simply gorgeous, never overpowering. It has a long wear time and a decent throw, which surprised me since it's such a light scent. I *love* this one, and I think it will become a mainstay of my spring scent wardrobe.

[taramarie]

On me, Parlement of Foules is just tea rose. I think the resins might be hiding, so I'm hoping age will bring them out.

[lilacea]

Slightly sweet, very simple, understated blend this one is. Pretty and soft tea rose, with frankincense lending a slight camphorous, almost lemony quality on the initial application, and a hint of that sweet note that appears in BPAL's incensy blends.

 

The dry down is not all that far removed from the initial application, the rose does take over just a little, becomes softly powdered around the edges, but mostly stays true.

 

Feminine, simple, soft, light throw.

[CordeliaSeduced]

This might be the first BPAL blend I've tried that doesn't morph radically depending on its application stage. It smelled basically the same in the bottle as it did on my skin--pure and elegant rose with soft, powdery incense.

After drying significantly, the resins are more pronounced, but it takes a seasoned sniffer to figure them out and I still got strong whiffs of rose if I changed positions or made a brisk movement.

The scent lasted a fairly long while--about five hours, with enough throw to keep me happy without being overpowering to anyone around. I'll be interested to see if the resins age differently in this blend, and how it does in a scent locket: I like this scent, but I seem to be amping the rose over everything.

[alsatia]

Expectations: Rose is among my favorite florals, but I'm not sure about the resins. I'd guess I'll at least feel neutral about this, if not like or love it.

 

In vial: I seem to have inhaled a packet of rose-flavored Kool-Aid. I'm not sure how resins equal citric acid.

 

On skin, wet: Smells even more strongly of citric acid.

 

On skin, dry: There's still a faint hint of citric acid when I sniff this directly, but the throw is good without being overpowering, and it's a lovely soft powdery rose.

 

After time: No change in the first half hour after drying. After 45 minutes, I'm not noticing the throw quite as much but it could be my nose is getting used to it.

 

Conclusion: A very nice rose scent. I've smelled others that I liked more, but for now I'm going to hold onto this one.

[widdershins]

Parlement of Foules didn't really impress me when I was reading the descriptions of the Lupercalia blends this year, but a generous forumite put a frimp of it in a package I swapped with her--and I fell in love . It's the perfect blend of sweet white roses and smoky resins. I love me some of Beth's resiny notes.

This is one of the few blends that doesn't really morph on me from bottle to skin. Occasionally a bit more of the rose will come through, but nothing that will smack you upside the head. I love wearing it (it's become one of my go-to oils when I can't decide what to wear). It evokes the few times I went to the Bristol Renaissance Faire--very magical.

[alterosen]

I cherish my imp of Parlement of Foules so I was very happy it was re-released this Lupercalia & I could order a bottle.

 

When I first tried it, I was expecting it to be very close to Rose Cross since they both have similar notes (white rose & resins/rose & frankincense) but they're really quite different.

 

I must be the only person who's getting the smell of berries from the resins in this

It's more pronounced in the 2006 version than the 2008, so it might be partly an aging thing but is most likely my odd nose At least there's no sign of molasses.

 

For me, this is a lovely light sweet rose with a few raspberries on the side - yum! Very much a warm weather scent, while Rose Cross is more resiny & cozy so I prefer it in winter. They both remind me of the scent of old roses rather than that of modern varieties.

Edited April 18, 2008 by alterosen

[Miss Lynx]

The surprise winner of this year's Lupercalia scents, at least for me. It's funny -- out of that whole huge update, so many of them sounded really good, but very few of them actually worked on me once I tried them. But this one really did.

 

This one has been around for Lupercalias past, and never caught my attention before because I saw rose and immediately wrote it off -- I actually do like the scent of rose, but my skin has a tendency to amp it to extremes, so any scent in which rose is a dominant note tends to become hellish rose overkill on me.

 

And yet... I keep on secretly hoping to find the perfect exception to that rule. And rose plus resins had potential -- sure, Rose Cross turned into single-note rose on me, and Spellbound didn't work until I found an imp that looked like it had been aged a couple of years, but you never know. So this time, I finally ordered a decant of this one.

 

And wow -- I think I really did just find a rose scent that works on me! It skates pretty close to the edge of becoming too rosy, but never quite goes over. The rose note in here is a really gentle one, and very well-balanced with the incense resins. So the overall effect is a sort of soft rose incense, never overpowering even on my rose-amping skin.

 

It's actually highly reminiscent of All Souls, without the soul cakes -- I was reasonably certain that one had a bit of white rose in it, and this pretty much confirms it, at least to my nose. In face, if I didn't already have a bottle of All Souls, I'd have had to get a bottle of this. As it is, I'll enjoy the imp, and who knows, if it makes a comeback next Lupercalia, I might have to get a bottle after all.

 

Grade: B+

[edenssixthday]

Parlement of Foules 2008 – I was really looking forward to this blend because I love the few BPAL blends out there with white rose. However, this wasn’t a good blend on me. I can barely smell the rose. What I smell more than anything is something heavy and sour that reminds me of… molasses? Yes, that’s it! It reminds me of using molasses in recipes when I helped my mom bake when I was a kid. The rose is barely discernible and the molasses note is highly unpleasant on my skin.

[SarahScent44]

In the imp, I can smell the rose, but there's something warmer and sweeter over top.

 

On my skin, it is a very pale rose, very light; the resins have receded quite a bit.

 

When it dries, it's very light, very sweet (not in the candy way, like people are sweet) - very well-balanced, with the softness and warmth of the resins taking precedence. It's really nice, but not a WOW.