Ozymandias

[Saya]

Desolation. The remnants of an empire, shivering with forgotten glories, a monument to megalomania, sundered power, and colossal loss. Dry desert air, dry and hot, passing over crumbling stone megaliths and plundered golden monuments, bearing a hint of the incense of lost Gods on its winds.

 

Very light and dry. It's got an airy dust scent to it which is a bit masculine on my skin.

Interesting, but not something I'd wear.

[ami226]

Light, dusty, and soapy. Darn. This one definitely isn't for me.

[Monster]

This smells alsmost exactly like Tauers L'Air du desert marocain. It's funny. I received this from The Lab as a frimp, sniffed this and immediatly thought it smelled like the Tauer perfume. I looked up the scent description and it's almost identical! I do believe Beth and Andy Tauer are cut from the same cloth.

 

The thing I LOVE about L'Air du desert marocain is how the scent paints a perfect picture of a cobalt blue sky hanging above hot sand dunes. It smells exactly like the description Andy Tauer wrote. Ozymandias does this as well (just like many other BPAL perfume oils...which is why I LOVE Bpal so much!)

This is a perfect example of perfume genius.

This is the scent of the night air cooling the dry, desert sands. Incense dances from tents in the distance....it's mysterious, sacred, ancient and absolutely gorgeous!

 

As far as notes are concerned, this is mostly amber....the same amber you'll find in The Lion. It's spiced and warm with a touch of powder.

I would describe this as unisex and resin based.

 

Love love love!

[Dharklady]

In Bottle: Ozoney incense and very perfume-esque

Wet: Ozone and incensy perfume.

Dry: The perfume feeling fades leaving behind dry ozone.

Notes: I really like the concept behind this one as there are a number of great stories and songs about the King of Kings, Ozymandias. Unfortunately I get a lot of sweet ozone and not much else.

 

[galahad]

In The Bottle

Dry, thin and sllightly spicy

 

On Application

Definitely dry and stony (not dusty)

 

Dry Down

Smells kind of like a high end talcum powder. I expected to reallly love this but...no.

 

Rating (0-5)

1

[SophieCedar]

Wet: Uhm.. dry old spice mens deodorant.

Dryodwn: same! I like the mental picture of Scarecrow more.

[lejlkwiet]

Wet this was very powdery and dry - too powdery, really, it made me cough. But it dried down quite nicely and when the incense started coming through I liked it a lot better. It really did suit the description, reminding me of someplace lost and abandoned.

 

Not bottle-worthy for me, it's not my favourite kind of scent, but I'll be hanging onto my imp of it.

[metaldog32]

Initial sniff from bottle: Something in here reminds me of ozone..it kind of feels powdery a bit and yes dry..there’s an undercurrent of incense underneath it. Not something that wows me but it doesn’t really repel me either..I’m neutral.

 

Applied wet on skin: Still the bit of ozone dry powder thing going on with the incense. I believe YBNB mentioned something in her review about the feel of it or a note that kind of reminds her of something in Urania and I have to agree..it’s a high pitched ozone type of note that I register.

 

Couple of minutes on skin: This really doesn’t bloom that much on me..it’s staying kind of linear as far as what I smelled in the bottle translating on my skin. That high pitched dry ozone-y like note with a bit of incense underneath it..kind of powdery..not registering anything else.

 

2 hours later:-The high pitched ozone-y note has faded away and I’m left with a dry muted incense note.

I can sort of see what other people refer to golden and resinous but honestly I’m not sure if I’m allowing the imagery of the description of the scent to color my impression.

 

The throw on this not very strong; it’s a bit close to the skin on me and yet the lasting power is pretty good..about 4+ hours.

I’ve worn this about 3 times to get a decent gauge on it.

 

Bottom Line: Ozymandias is tolerant enough but on me it renders unremarkable. The notes just sit on me and basically do nothing else..no wafting to something truly evocative. It’s linear and there’s nothing wrong with that..the bottle I inherited from my sister will need to find another home that will love it for the remarkable things it does on someone else’s skin chemistry-I’m meh with it.

[yakiguri]

Ozymandias starts off with an almost aldehyde-y ozone note, but the air is dry and lacks the effervescence of a typical aldehyde top note. The incense, as it curls to the surface, is dark, dry, and spicy, but never smokey. I'm thankful for that as incense can typically turn sour or ashy on my skin. As Ozymandias sinks more into my skin I get bits of amber, but it's a dark amber.

 

With the scent overall I'm strongly reminded of Chanel No. 5 but with its citrus notes removed--it and Ozymandias could be cousins. I would also say the two scents evoke the same feeling--something old, ornate, and perhaps out-of-place in modern times, but can/should at least be respected. For the record I love Chanel No.5, but since I have a bottle of that already I'll pass on a bottle of Ozymandias. I'll certainly keep my imp though.

[Amalthea]

I tested this frimp with a clean toothpick.

 

In the imp: Reminds me of an older ladies perfume. Regal, powdery and perfumey.

 

Wet on the skin: Alcoholic but also the same as above.

 

On the drydown: Hmm. Baby powder with an old lady twist? So disturbing.

 

Dry: It smells like generic feminine perfume. It loses its powderiness which is probably good. I feel like it's a younger scent now.

 

Verdict: It's nice, I suppose but not something I'm amazed with. It's going into my frimp stash.

[Eliyetres]

Bottle: WOW this does smell like a bar of soap with a lot of different flowers in it! On my skin it's not that bad, more like a faint perfume, very dry and classy. Maybe something you would like if you like vintage perfumes. Sadly, I'm not one of them.

[Suu4LC]

Gah, in the imp this is a total dry air scent. Made my eyes water tbh. Uncanny how it captured that feeling of desperately hot, dry air. Yep, same on my skin. Oppressively hot dry air and stone. Sort of dries down to a clean cologne scent actually...very simple and unisex.

 

This dried down SUPER powdery. An ozone-powdery scent. A very interesting scent journey but unfortunately, just didn't work for me. I will say, that wet in the imp scent was pretty insane in how perfectly it captured oppressively hot dry air. Makes my eyes water just thinking about it!

[milo]

Not really getting dry desert air here, more jasmine with a touch of incense. I have just got in from an extremely cold and wet evening, however, so maybe this is counter-acting the effect of the cold. Anyways it helps to think I"ve put on an oil that is supposed to have hot dry evocativeness.

[Gateau]

To me this smells exactly like the perfumey part of Black Lace, without the vanilla lace base, and like a drier Lyonesse. Definitely get the amber and whiff of incense. I like it, though I like the richness of the other two scents I mentioned a bit more.

[Sidhechaos]

Desolation. The remnants of an empire, shivering with forgotten glories, a monument to megalomania, sundered power, and colossal loss. Dry desert air, dry and hot, passing over crumbling stone megaliths and plundered golden monuments, bearing a hint of the incense of lost Gods on its winds.

 

spice, incense amd musk....a warm somewhat masculine scent with a tinge of something I can't quite identify,I want to a wine or brandy like note. I like this a lot.

[hobbitballerina]

Usually, anything with ozone is a no go for me. I got this as a frimp, and on a whim, tried it yesterday since it was hot out and that seemed a good match. Who, boy, am I glad I did!

 

In the Imp: Dusty incense. I have no idea how this manages to hit desert dust, but it does.

 

Wet: Hello, incense! Warm, amber incense being burned on the ruins of an ancient Egyptian temple out in the desert. Glorious and thick and sweet and sexy as all hell, if that's your thing.

 

Dry: The sweetness stayed, as did the incense. For hours. It just wafted around me all the time, and I loved it, utterly loved it. One of the characters in our ongoing novel projects is an undead Crusader who spent formative years in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and this strikes me as being very him in the best of ways. It's an intellectual kind of earthiness, something long gone and glorious. Fits the description to a t.

 

When I have actual cash incoming, I suspect this will get a full bottle, and it might replace Midnight Mass as my go-to incense scent. Utterly glorious and totally wearable. I feel like I could wear this to teach and not overwhelm folks with it, and while it has a feminine edge to it, it's not an exclamation-point feminissima scent. Almost unisex, really, in a sexy androgynous way. Like a woman in armour. Glorious.

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: Oh so much soap!

 

Dry: Super nice, expensive, slightly incensey soap.

[Marla Moreau]

Yuck! Old perfume... not at all like the description. At least this one fades fast on me, but is still kind of headache inducing... no incense, just floral and soapy.

[Casablanca]

I had to get a sample of one of my favorite poems.

Wand: Um, designer perfume? I didn't expect this to smell like something off the wall of Sephora, but that's the impression off the bat. I get a powdery amber musk perfume with a little incense and spice. Smells more like an alcohol base than anything I've sampled from BPAL before.

Wet: A poof of musky, ambery powder and a little incense. Ehm.

Dry: Oof.

[Lucchesa]

A second-hand imp of Ozymandias, of indeterminate age. Ozymandias is very faint on me. A little incensy, a little powdery, no throw nor a particularly long wear length, nothing that would raise it above beloved desert scents like The Lion or Bastet in my estimation or make me sad that it's discontinued.