Imp of the Perverse

[puck_nc]

The scent of three roses and a half bottle of cognac.

Origin: 1/4 decant from a dear friend on El Jay

Initial Thoughts: It has three roses. It must be tried.

In the Bottle: BOOZE! Then the roses, heavily likkered-up.

Wet: Ew...this is what happened with Peacock Queen. The roses are turning a nasty green on me. I'm getting collard greens stewed in alcohol.

Drydown: The cognac takes over a bit, but that evil green stench persists. I gave up and had to wash it off.

Verdict: I'm glad I got to try it, but it's definitely not for me. Edited December 12, 2007 by Shollin

[gwyllgi]

Reading the other reviews, I'm terribly glad that I'm not the only one who cracked the imp open and instantly thought of urine. I'm going with some of the statements that this was intentional here, for it truly is perverse. In that case, it's marvelously clever.

 

As it dries, I can separate it a little more into 'rose' and 'cognac' rather than 'urine', but they're too thoroughly blended to manage it completely. Even if I can get a small whiff that's roses and cognac, the next noseful is urine, all the way.

 

Clever or not, I totally have to wash this one off.

[yeahbutnobut]

Imp of the Perverse

 

In the imp: since the imp I have contains so little oil I don’t know how much I can put on the skin…in the vial, it’s roses. Slightly boozy dried roses. Nothing too scary yet!

Wet on skin: old roses, slightly wilted, with a bit of dark cognac.

Dry: hmm, this isn’t as nasty as I feared! But then again, I do like my roses. It’s very rosy, but the scent is of dry roses, wilted ones, not fresh roses, with cognac. It’s almost like a makeshift rose perfume made by soaking dry rose petals in alcohol…the cognac note is quite strong here, it’s dark and boozy and is balanced by the dry, concentrated rose scent. Nothing scary like sulphur, urine, compost or mouldy veg here-this smells exactly how it is described.

After a while: the cognac-rose scent gets a little bit darker, murkier, and the rose seems to fade a bit to the background. It does smell a bit more ‘stagnant’ but it’s not too unpleasant.

Verdict: this is actually not a bad smell on me! The reviews scared me a bit, but on my skin, this smells exactly of what it says it smells like-roses and cognac. Or, roses macerated in cognac. The roses in here are not fresh, bright, dewy roses like a lot of BPAL rose notes are, these are dried, almost wilted, but just before they go completely off they are preserved in a bottle of strong cognac. It’s dark, it’s boozy, it’s potent stuff, it’s very rosy indeed (in fact, it reminds me of a certain type of rose oil I smelt once-it smelt a lot drier and concentrated and more ‘old’ than the other rose oil next to it) but it’s not a horrible scent in any way. But then again I’m probably lucky since I love roses anyway. It’s not my favourite rose scent, but I’m glad I got to try this.

Emoticon rating:

[Scylla]

One of the other mods passed a nearly empty imp of Imp of the Perverse on to me for curiosity's sake. Thanks again!

 

Imp of the Perverse is SUPER STRONG! She double wrapped the imp in bubble wrap and put it in a plastic baggie and I could STILL smell it through the wrapping. Even in the wrapper, I could smell roses and something that smelled like masking tape. (Or Braunschweiger. I've always thought they smelled kinda similar.)

 

In the imp:

 

That is one funky smelling oil! (Beth, if you're reading this, I apologize in advance. )

 

I did not even try it on my skin because my chemistry usually only makes bad scents worse. Especially rose ones. Roses and I DO NOT get along, under any circumstances.

 

In the imp, to me it smelled like someone drank a bottle of expensive cognac, ate some foie gras and brie, yacked it up and attempted to cover the offending odor with rose scented room spray.

 

I'm sorry to say, this one smelled so bad it actually made my stomach seize up like I was going to hurl. Horrendous!

[grrrlennyl]

haha! i almost made scylla hurl!

 

at first: some sort of boozy note and something else that i can only describe as bad.

on: mostly that odd, bad note. i have no idea what it is. there is a lot more rose now, too.

overall: bad, just bad. i only had a bit of this to try, but it smells awful on me.

[edenssixthday]

Imp of the Perverse - HA HA HA HA HA! Beth, you have got a kickass wackadoo sense of humor. That stank is just NASTY! In the vial, it smells like something died and rotted -- same when it's applied to my skin. However, about 15 minutes later, after it dries down and my skin warms it up, the dead-corpse scent mostly dissipates, and the scent of cognac comes to the forefront, reminding me ever so slightly (note emphasis on the word "slightly") of Formula 54. The roses also begin to show themselves very faintly. Unfortunately, that dead-body odor never fully disappears, and it ruins the the entirety of the scent. I know why this is called Imp of the Perverse. It's because Beth played a big, fat perverse trick on all of us: "Buy the whole Parcel and you'll get this special imp!" Now she's looking at me, pointing and laughing, screeching, "SUCKER!!!" Yes, this is a perverse imp. Most definitely so. Perverse scent. Perverse sense of humor. Love the humor. Love Beth. Hate the scent of the Imp of the Perverse.

 

 

*edited to correct bad HTML

Edited December 10, 2006 by edenssixthday

[filigree_shadow]

I finally got to try Imp of the Perverse! After reading the reviews I was expecting a puke-inducing assault of disgust. Not so.

 

At first I thought that cognac was a bit too strong, then I thought the roses were too strong, and then it went back to cognac. But at no time did I think it was rancid, yucky, rotting, etc. I think it's not bad! The rose is a little bit green and harsh for my taste, though. It smells like a mean, bitter, jerk of a rose got himself sloshed on top-shelf booze. But the drydown is nice. I'd wear this (for more than just a test) if I had more of it.

 

But I have to admit that I love cognac, which is probably why I don't think this blend is icky. See, here's what happened: About 7 years ago I realized that I can't spend my entire life drinking vodka tonics. I'm one of those people who never developed a taste for alcoholic beverages, and vodka is one of the few things I could drink that didn't make me cringe and shiver and gag. I decided I would force myself to get used to another kind of drink. Something more posh than vodka. The only thing I could think of was how in the TV show Bewitched it seemed like they were always drinking brandy in the afternoon and it seemed rather sophisticated to me, so I decided I'd acclimate myself to brandy. I forced myself to drink a shot of brandy every single day for a month until I got used to it. And then, horror of horrors, I discovered that no one drinks brandy any more. Apparently cognac is the thing to drink now. So I tried a cognac. And I'll be damned if it wasn't three times as good as brandy. (Three times as expensive as well, but that's another story.) It's like if you've been eating hamburger your entire life and then suddenly one day you have a filet mignon and you think "Ohhhh, this is how it's supposed to taste!" I love the taste of cognac, I love the smell of it, and I love to savor it after a satisfying dinner. But I don't have it often. So to me, the scent of cognac is comforting, indulgent, and a wee bit decadent. And that's probably why I like Imp of the Perverse more than other people do.

[Orodemniades]

Well, it's straight-up alcohol on me. No roses, no cognac, just likker.

 

Ah well...

 

Oro

[supremegoddessofall]

Tried this at a meet and sniff. Strong alcohol on top of rotting roses. Barf.

[sofiaviolet]

*blinkblink* This smells like musty dusty old latex and plastic. Usually it's gardenia that goes to plastic on me, and I still haven't figured out what note goes to latex. But, gah.

[Laurel the Woodfairy]

I got to sniff the Imp at today's M&S--the perverse little bugger did not show me any rose, no doubt knowing my love of rose, but was a pure cognac scent; probably too strong for me to wear, but I was impressed by how much it truly smelled like sniffing a bottle of fine cognac!

[dirtytrip]

Not quite dry roses - their fragrance is fresher than that to me, and indeed they burst out on my skin with the booze as a background when I first apply the scent. In the end, though, I have to chime in with yeahbutnobut - old roses that are steeped in cognac just before they go off. The cognac element takes on something that's almost cocoa powder. Eventually, it softens up and it turns into something quite nice on me! Minimal waft.

[savage_rose]

I remember trying this years ago, and it smelled like a sweet, tangy rose. Now, it's straight cognac with a the barest whiff of rose. Not bad, but if you wear this while driving you WILL get pulled over.

 

ETA: Because it will make you drunk while you wear it! It's that strong. Also, possibly because the cops will be able to smell it through the car .

Edited May 8, 2008 by savage_rose

[ND¢]

Oh, no, yeccccch. No. *sniffs* Nooooo. It really is sort of like I smell like a zombie or someone's evil laundry pile with rose scent sprayed on top. Ohhhhh. I made such a face.

[ljaylh]

When this first went on, it was nasty NASTY get this offamenowaaaaaaggghhhhhhh! How nasty? Kinda like a mixture of peanut butter, poo, and rotting meat. Uh huh. Like ND¢ before me.. I too made such a face.

 

That mostly went away, leaving behind a weird kind of boozy, honey-ish rose with a teensy touch of something slightly rancid lurking in there.

 

Errr.. not for me. Interesting, though.