Kali

[lookingglass]

<div class="bpal" style="background-color:transparent; border: 1px dotted #000033; color: #000099; padding: 5px; width: 90%; align:center;margin:0 auto 0 auto"><i>Kali, the Black One, is the fearless Goddess of Destruction, Creation, Energy [in her Shakti aspect] and Dissolution. Also named Kaliratri [black Night] and Kalikamata [black Earth-Mother], she is the fiercest aspect of Devi, the supreme mother goddess. Kali is a protector Goddess, the destroyer of evil spirits and guardian of the faithful. She, along with her consort Shiva, represent the unending cycle of death and birth, sexual union, creation and destruction. Kali annihilates ignorance, maintains the natural order of the world, and blesses those who strive for spiritual awareness and knowledge of true holiness with infinite tenderness and motherly love. The constant, unending Work of Creation is called the "The Play of Kali". This perfume is a blend of the sacred blooms of cassia, hibiscus, musk rose, Himalayan wild tulip, lotus and osmanthus swirled with offertory dark chocolate, red wine, tobacco, balsam and honey.<!-- bpal scent end --></i></div>

 

Wet, this scent is thick and juicy. There is a heavy, lusty sweetness along with the alcohol blast.

 

On the drydown the florals steal the show. Hello rose...definately a key player, but it dosn't waft up towards me, I have to go to her. She is dancing with the other notes. The chocolate darkens.

 

When I wake up the next morning, this scent still pleasently lingers. There is a slightly chocolatey, cooked fruit smell deep in my skin. My 3 year old son says it smells like smoke.

 

This scent reminds me of the sacrifical offering that may be made to Kali. Ooooooom Kali Maaaaaaaaa....

Edited June 18, 2011 by lookingglass

[daybreaksdisdain]

I love Kali, from the bottle to my wrist to the dry down, all good

 

Pretty much floral the whole way through for me with just enough spice to temper it without being obvious.

 

Fades way too fast though so I just have to reapply

[OriginalWacky]

Bottle (Imp): Oh, sweet and vanilla over luscious chocolate.

 

Just On: Mmmm, yes, chocolate with other notes hovering around it. Vanilla and possibly some crisp fruit.

 

An hour or two later: Quite chocolate-y. I really like this a lot.

 

Around 6 hours: Faint bits of chocolate, and maybe a tiny bit of flowers.

 

12 hours: The barest hint of chocolate.

 

Overall: Another hit, and another one for the big bottle list. Man is my budget gonna suffer with this addiction.

 

After reading other reviews: Yup, I get the chocolate, and so much more.

[ohm]

Oh, wow. This smells so deliciously beautiful.. like a sweet shampoo. I know, I am always reminded of weird things. But this is lucious and beautiful so far.

[magdalene]

in the bottle: roses, wine, and incense.

 

wet on skin: I'm not getting the chocolate, thankfully. The tiniest bit of tobacco, which makes this a 'sit up and notice me' scent. Very, very adult.

 

dry: the wine has gotten a bit on the sweet side, like a bottle of cheap red sangria. The roses and incense blend together with the wine in a heady mix. This is a scent to wear when dancing long hours into the night, until you drop in exhaustion.

[Kittyflop]

The chocolate is very apparent to me, and something else that I think is the tobacco. It's not too sweet. I don't get much of the floral that others have mentioned. To me this is very much like eating chocolate drops in my grandfather's old polished-wood-trimmed law office - where you know you have to be quiet and serious, but he and I both break into giggles now and then. I really like this one.

[Athena's Owl]

In the Imp: Lovely. a brandy that's infused with orange blossoms, a ghost of dark chocolate on my tongue, and smoke lingering in the background. a comfrotable-dark paneled room, a globe of drink and a pipe at my elbow, turning a thin wafer of dark chocolate in my fingers as I taste that and fill my mouth again with this not sweet but smell those oranges drink--the line of glowing warmth down my body and the brandy pools. I feel reckless, lounging here in my man drag - outrageously uncorseted, not a single pin in my hair as it tumbles. I am young enough never to have done these things before, and young enough to glorify in the wickedness of drink and smoke and smoking jackets, alone. I shall play billiards next, and look for my father's blue magazines.

 

Wet: the scent changes to something else, wet on my wrist. something rich and dense and lush. swollen with flowers, but not sweet - a breath of the breeze, perhaps, as I open the french doors for air and lean outside to banish the dizziness of man's drink and man's smoke from my head, and the beautiful smell of the hot Ceylon night and mother's roses steals over me, curling an arm around my waist and leading me outside to breathe it in, but it hasn't cleared my head at all. The moon rises over a pond of flowers, and I hitch the belt of father's smoking jacket around my waist and pick my skirts up to walk barefooted across the garden lawn to it, past the sleeping peacocks in the glorious night, and why haven't I ever been out here before?

 

After 20 minutes: a drowsy sweetness of flowers, melted chocolate on my fingers, and a peaceful night of the moon and stars. so warm out here I could sleep with the peacocks, but I'd get caught for sure, so i get up and go back to my father's room. the brandy, put away, the pipe cleared of its dottle, and a pot of tea with honey and milk waits for me. my ayah will not tell on me, and I have a cup and look out at the night before I go to bed so no one will be the wiser of my adventure.

 

Later: I go to breakfast, having slept the sleep of the innocent... as long as no one detects the ghost of pipesmoke in my hair. Luckily, we're breakfasting on the terrace to watch the peacocks, and the table has a bouquet of blooms, and more of that blessed tea.

 

This is hands down and for sure a keeper, on the buy 5mL list. It's not Kali as I envisioned it, but it's sure nice.

[slugbait]

I got this imp from the lovely elevanthousand. Thank you, dear!

 

I forgot about the components of this blend and thought my nose was severely out of whack when I smelled chocolate. Then I read the description. Hey, it is in there!

 

Straight out of the imp this smells like fruity chocolate. Very sweet. Gradually gets sweeter on my skin, Slightly smoky. I can smell the sweet honey and wine as this dries. I think of deep purple fruits when I smell this. Mmm. The sweetness reminds me a bit Queen Mab. I applied this early in the morning and lasted into the late hours of the afternoon.

 

A very beautiful and complex blend. I’ll hang on to my imp

[Rackham's Vanity]

Kali is tricky.

 

I love Beth's chocolate note, but I don't get it from Kali.

 

Tobacco does not work for me, and I don't get it either from Kali.

 

What I do get is a sticky, gooey, sweet summer scent, all flowers dripping with honeyed nectar. Kali is homemade rock sugar candy and banana splits. Kali is palm trees and aquamarine waves. Kali is dancing in the darkness by a fire on a pristine Caribbean shore.

 

For a dark goddess, Kali sure knows how to have a good time.

[judas_kiss]

I have wanted to try this bad girl out for a while.

 

Anyway, in the imp, I got a very sweet rosey tobacco with a dark undercurrent. Tobacco was the dominant note to my nose.

 

I put it on and well, I have decided that I cannot do wine/rose or wine/berry combos anymore as they both just war it out on my skin and I am caught in the crossfire. This morphed on me much the same as Blood Rose and Blood Countess did: from a gorgeous, seductive perfume when wet to a kind of a potpourri scent as it dried down. Gods, I hate hate hate my chemistry sometimes.

[zenvodunista]

I distinctly remember trying this on and thinking it didn't work. Apparently I didn't bother to write a review though. Did it go powdery or something? Was it old ladyish? I have no idea. But whatever it was that bothered me about this scent is gone now -- perhaps it was the aging that did it, and the repeated testings.

 

I get no chocolate from this scent -- but i DO get a tamed lotus. usually, my skin amps the lotus to unbearable levels, but here, the lotus blends beautifully with the rose and other florals. the smoke hovers in the background, bringing everything back down to earth. This is a gorgeous scent -- womanly, cosmopolitan, elegant. i definitely want a bottle to help me kick major ass at the office! i feel powerful. sexy, smart and confident wearing this.

 

{edited to add}

 

so, that review as at 9:15, a half hour into wearing. it's now 10:35 and you know what? it's all baby powder. i am Sad.

 

n.

Edited September 7, 2005 by zenvodunista

[Miss Lynx]

I tried this briefly at a friend's place once, along with a whole lot of other scents, and didn't like it much then, but when I got a frimp of it from the Lab I figured it deserved another try.

 

It's actually not too bad, this time around. The florals don't dominate it as much as I expected. And I can recognize the tartness of hibiscus from Maenad, which is a good note for toning down excessive sweetness. And the wine thankfully does not turn to grape candy on me the way it sometimes does.

 

It's got a nice multilayered complexity to it, though it's still a fairly light and gentle scent, not at all what I'd associate with Kali. The eventual drydown actually reminds me a bit of Amsterdam.

 

All in all, a complex and interesting scent, but probably not really "me".

 

Grade: C+/B-

Edited February 16, 2006 by Miss Lynx

[sookster]

ewwwwwww....

so soury and horrid smelling with my chemistry....i get zero of the lovely notes that kali offers.....just a mess of what smells like a flowery ass....sooooo sorry Beth ......i know others love it and i only wish i could be on that bandwagon....

dadburned chemistry...... i could SCREAM

[AngelFireHeart]

Kali – Out of the bottle this is quite sweet, somewhat reminiscent of apple juice, with maybe a hint of white wine vinegar, giving this scent a fairly sharp edge. On application the sharp edge dulls down a lot, & the scent becomes more floral, but still strong, with an apple like scent to it. This perfume is very feminine & slightly incense-y.

[VelvetSky]

I received Kali from kittyflop, and I'm so happy to be able to review this perfume, which has been on my wishlist for a while now!

 

Kali is a very sexy, intense, sophisticated, extroverted scent that Beth has blended with breathtaking skill. It's floral, but not a cliche. It's gourmand, but not weirdly foody. It's deep and dark, but very wearable.

 

The two notes in this perfume that seem to be the most prominent on my skin are the rose and the lotus. As it dries, the incensey, tobacco, boozy notes become more obvious, but to me, this is basically an intense floral.

 

I will be ordering a bottle of this; I adore it.

[modesty_blaise]

Kali is the lighter version of Perversion, I think. The lighter version even I can wear. Yay!

 

I don´t get any chocolate, which isn´t a bad thing, really. It´s floral, but I can´t pick out any particular flower, and yes, it´s adult, as so many has said before me, but adult in a good way. Soft, but determined. I can´t believe this has been in my imp box for so long before I reached for it. Silly, silly me.

[niter]

Bottle

The first whiff I took revealed a robust scent filled with cocoa butter. Riding with the refined chocolate, was a delicate, sweet airy note. I put the bottle down to attend to other matters and my desk area was filled with a lushness: the thick chocolate wine dancing with the honeyed flowers. My second sniff of the bottle was dominated by the airy floral scent...a floral I had never smelt before, full of intrigue.

 

Wet

The foreign floral scent comes out strongest on my skin mixed with balsam and the scent of the red wine. The first word coming to mind is bouquet as the notes of this scent mixed with the wine remind me of trying to distinguish the notes in an exquistine glass of wine.

 

As it dries, the lotus note begins to gently dominate, complementing my skin chemistry (I amp lotus well) and harmonizing well with the other scents. The flowers sweeten, the wine adds maturity, and the lotus seduces.

 

Dry

 

This scent is womanly in the truest form: the airy feminine notes of fragility, the motherly florals of a loving and familiar embrace, and the thick notes of the temptress.

 

Incredible...I just read the entire descritption in the BPAL website (I usually just go right for the last line to read the notes) and I really do think that Beth nailed this scent down to this name perfectly.

Edited September 18, 2005 by niter

[Savannah]

This was part of my very first BPAL order, and if I'd known then what I know now, I'd never have been brave enough to order a scent with this many notes-- and mostly unfamiliar ones, to boot. I just get overwhelmed and annoyed by that amount of complexity. I'm a simple gal.

 

Sure enough, Kali didn't work for me. I got a sweet, honeyed, slightly spicy floral, with a faint trace of sweet wine and a couple of annoyingly elusive darker notes of tobacco and chocolate, which refused to stay around but also refused to go away permanently and let me evaluate the floral in peace. This blend is very sophisticated and complex, and a lot of the notes are really nice, but it just wouldn't settle down on me.

[lohengrin]

In the imp: Chocolate and honey. Maybe a bit of lotus.

 

On, wet: Sweet floral, with just a bit of honey and chocolate in the background.

 

Later: Honey-sweet flowers. The chocolate, mercifully, fades away to nothing. Maybe a hint of red wine and tobacco, because this does smell a bit more layered and complex than just honey and flowers, but anything else is too subtle for me to pick out.

[grrrlennyl]

at first: chocolate!

on: definitely chocolate. this is so lovely. it isn't as sweet as bliss. i can definitely smell the wine and a bit of honey. the tobacco is there, too. so lovely!

1 hour later: soft and dusty. i still mostly get chocolate, but there's a floral bit to this, too.

2.5 hours later: still chocolate-y, but dry.

5 hours later: the honey is really heavy, but i can still smell the chocolate.

overall: i seem to do very well with the darker, drier chocolates from bpal and this is no exception. lovely stuff.

[ocicat]

Wow! I *hated* the smell of this in the imp. It was too boozy and strong for me.

 

But then I put it on..

 

It immediately lightens and just sparkles.

 

*love*

[maewitch]

At first, it's all about the chocolate and the red wine and the tobacco and I'm thinking, Kali is one chick who knows how to live life.

 

And then the lotus. There is a moment, a brief but HORRIBLE moment when the Goddess becomes a gum-snapping girl. I am not pleased.

 

Though that is but a momentary lapse, it haunts the rest of the dry-down. Rich and decandent without being quite foody, it's so close to being a sure thing.

 

But not quite.

[Ankhet]

Kali:

In the bottle: Whoo! That's...interesting. I don't know quite what I smell, except for too-sweet honey.

Wet: Honey and...I don't know what the other note is. Maybe one of the flowers?

Drydown: Hm. I'm not sure what I think about this. It seems really heavy and perfumey. I'll ask my mom what she thinks of it. Hm. She likes it on me. I think I'll try it again heavier when it's colder on me.

Conclusion: keep, test when the weather turns colder.

[Freyja Lux]

First sniff: sweet, floral (nothing I would be able to identify by name yet), and WOW.

 

Applied: what a complex and sexy scent! I don't detect any chocolate but the florals, honey, (and maybe the tobacco?) I get. Wow. You wear this and people will be intrigued for sure. Very voluptuous and mature. I like it.

[imaginepageant]

In the vial: Chocolate hits me hard right off the bat, dark at first, but at the end of the inhale, it goes sweet and milky. The red wine is also prevalent, and the tiniest hint of honey. I'm really not getting anything floral out of this. This is flirtation, seduction in the disguise of sweetness and playfulness.

 

Wet: The florals come out with a vengeance, forcing the chocolate that was once so strong far into the background.

 

Dry: Uh oh... there's the tobacco. Uh oh, it's turning into gross old man cigar! Nooooo!

 

An hour later: Ah, thank goodness. The tobacco stench has receeded, and the chocolate has reclaimed its rightful place, along with a hint of wine. So it's basically gone back to what it was originally! But... not as nice as it was originally.

 

Overall: It's all right, but not for me. Even if I loved the end result I don't think I could stand to put up with that icky tobacco stage.