Bien Loin D'Ici

[anastasia]

The Scarlet Woman, aglow with sensual indolence: red musk, benzoin, caramel accord, golden honey, and spiced Moroccan unguents.

I have enjoyed as I read through reviews, how everyone seems to have a scent that smells like their first "head shop." This one is mine. It was not exactly a head shop but a shop in this old wooden rabbit warren of a building that had our "art" movie theater at the top and an espresso shop and a pizza place and some hair salons down below. This gift shop was in there for a long time and they had a huge assortment of antiques and hand made or really nice cards and lamps and tchotchkes and some local art. It wasn't gloomy or dusty but the building was old so it was kind of antiquey and refined. Warm stained glass lamplight and pens and old lace. This scent captures that and more so, a particuar brand of incense that I used to buy there which was my trademark because I was the only one of my friends with the ability to differentiate incense quality and I HATED Gonesh and all those other crappy made to mask other smells type of incenses. This was by no means the best incense but the best I could get at the time. It came in a triangle shaped box and I do not remember the name but it was I think this fragrance is reminiscent of one that was yellow rose scented. Only much much better. And I am so glad. If it just smelled like the incense I probably would not love it but it is a deep and sparkling golden scent. I really have not explored all the resinous scents yet but this is going toward the top of my full bottle list. It is elegant and bright.

[copagirl]

This is my very first review and I have to say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE this stuff!! It is so amazing I want to drench my whole body in it. When first sniffing in the imp, it was very strong and spicey, very sweet. Putting it on my wrist, I can really smell the spices, soft caramel, and that wonderful incense smell. Yummy.

Later on it has mellowed, spices are softer and now I'm smelling more incense and honey/caramel. I still love it, I keep sniffing my wrist. Went to bed, when I woke up I sniffed and still smell the honey! Very nice, I will definitely need to buy a bottle of this!

[milica]

I wanted to like this one, it smelled spicy, smokey and sweet like honey in the begining, but I think that musk is wild on me in this one. It even went a bit sour on me, probably caramel. Sooo, pass.

[mhickle]

This smells just like a pack of incense a friend gave me - heady and thick - very sweet and rich. It's quite a sexy scent - I wear it when I want to feel gorgeous. Decent throw and long-lasting - one of those that deepens as the night goes on, and because the throw fades throughout the night, it becomes a more secret and personal sort of scent - reserved for those who get close.

[Saya]

This is one of the blends that literally made me feel ill. I had to wash it off - epic stink.

 

Rating (1-5) -1

[TheLetterL]

A friend passed this along to me. She got it for the honey but ended up disliking it.

 

My skin amped something like crazy from the moment of contact. I suspect it was the benzoin...maybe the mysterious unguents? LOL Whatever it was, my skin turned the volume up to 11 on this one. It took several hours for this to mellow. (Again, benzoin, I'm looking in your direction.) I ended up with soft, spicy, a little honey...eight hours later. The red musk may have made an appearance at some point, but my only other experience with that note is in Kabuki, which goes in a totally different direction. Couldn't pick caramel out of a line-up, so I'm no help there.

 

I remember thinking "Nice. Nice scent, but not...pretty." Feminine but not girly, I guess. I asked one co-worker what she thought, and she said "Incense?" Maybe the mysterious unguents did end up being part of the equation. Another co-worker perked up as I walked by and said I smelled like lemons. He meant it in a good way, I think.

 

Overall: Keeping the imp, not planning to order more.

[parrot_suspect]

This blend is unusual in that the scent on your skin differs from the sillage. When I press my nose to my wrist, I get an odd burnt plastic sort of smell. However, if I simply inhale the aura of scent that hovers around me, it's magical. It's a glowing, golden, musky, slightly powdery, sweet honey-drenched sensation. Stunning. On me, it does not display the fruity/juiciness of red musk. It almost seems amber-y. And it's not at all foody, even though caramel is listed as a note.

 

Here's how it compares to other blends that were mentioned in this thread -- on me, anyway.

Scherezade: Bien Loin d'Ici is softer and warmer and doesn't smell as red musk-y.

Sed non Satiata: Although the notes are similar, I can't wear SNS because it's too boozy on me. There is no booze whatsoever in BLd'I.

Smut: There's something in Smut that doesn't agree with my skin chemistry. Smut smells harsh and dirty on me. BLd'I is soft and gentle, almost clean (yet still sexy).

Urd: Urd is a very strong headshoppy incense/grape scent on me. This is much, much softer and has a touch of powder, which Urd does not have in the least.

Skuld: It's similar to Skuld in that honey is a predominant note and there's an overall sweetness to it, and that the notes all blend together well. Skuld seems bolder and more aggressive, however, than this blend.

 

In a nutshell...if you like honey, musk or incense, you must try this.

[chimera87]

So. Disappointed.

 

I normally love every single not listed in this, so I thought it'd be heavenly with them all together.

 

On me, this is total baby powder and generic perfume. What the heck!? I can't even detect many of the listed notes when I sniff it in the vial, but it really turns bad once it hits my skin

[mgrazulis]

Very unusual in the imp. Wet on skin, it went to a thick powdery scent with an oily background. Now I can't stop sneezing~off she goes!!

[caffinatedangel]

In the imp, it's so very very sweet.

Wet on skin - it explodes. All the notes seem to come dashing out at me and im overwhelmed, in a delicious way. I get the sweet, but it passes and vanishes. There was something my mind wanted to say was caramel. The honey is there, and man is it honey. It's like... cutting from the comb honey. Fresh and real and mmm...

Dry - So, I feel like there's rose in this. I sniff, and I smell rose. Spicey, delicious, red rose. Is there? I have no idea. but this is very floral, in a non-jasmine-ewomggetoffme way. It's really spicey, but with a sweetness so it doesn't get overwhelming, and this touch of something green making it seem natural.

 

My nose is awful at picking out many scents. But my overall vibe for this? Rose. Like, how I want rose to smell in my head. Sweet, spicey, earthy, amazing. Odd, but there you have it.

 

Incredible throw. A little goes a long way. It's a very adult scent. It's not powdery on me yet, and its still so very floral in a perfect way. What ARE these moroccan unguents? Well whatever, it's a keeper.

[topazphoenix]

Bien Loin D'Ici was a pleasant surprise. It's amazingly like a fruit and incense loaded O. It's not overwhelming, sharp, or headache inducing at all - just warm, soft, and inviting, while still maintaining something of a mysterious, exotic quality.

[Andrea912]

This reminds me of Snake Oil; its dark and rich and sweet; the spices are not in your face...sexy and exotic. I feel like a Moroccan dancer

[rayvn1]

Good god that's a lot of red musk!! Like Scheherezade and Smut had a love child that wanted a lot of attention. Good lord.... Fruity red musk with an insane amount of throw. A bit of this a bit of that - I really like benzoin so that may be part of why I like this blend. Ballsy. Feminine, but very ballsy. I love it

[ouch!]

Wow this is a good one! So unexpected. Red musk is my fave note so...wanted to get this.

 

This is very musky, and headshoppy as someone else has said. It has a likeness to Smut, O & Scherezade.

 

The honey really behaves in this blend as does the caramel. Usually the caramel in BPAL blends is so powerful and it ends up going to curry on me.

This blend is gorgeous and sexy. It's a like a incencsey blend with a bit of foody going on, but not too much as the musks are the winning notes in the race.

 

The wet stage is more red musky and the dry stage is where the foodyish and softer/skin musks come out. Sooo nice. If you've tried O and the honey was too much for you, you might like this.

 

I most certainly do!

[jennythereader]

First Worn On: 7/9/2009

 

In The Imp: Spicy, soapy

 

When Wet: Sweet incense

 

When Dry: ? (I didn't make any comment in my spreadsheet.)

 

Rating: 2; use up but don't replace; tradeable for something amazing

[devilot]

Bien Loin D'Ici

In the Vial: Red musk and then something sharp and "classically perfumey."

 

Wet: Ugh, super duper "perfumey." Like a bottle of old-lady perfume I found on the playground as a little girl. Ooh, red musk is comin' back around, sweetened a bit by the caramel and honey, but whooaaa nelly! Talk about the Morrocan spiced unguents (whatever those are), it smells spicy.

 

Drydown: Still sort of an "odd" scent.

 

Verdict: Really not for me. Too bad, as the notes sound to die for. Swaps!

[Ankica]

I didn't find myself in it...

I expected totally different smell... cannot even explain...

 

[voodoocatwoman]

This is bottle worthy. No, make that VAT worthy. Barrel worthy. Never ending supply worthy. Yes, I think this one will be in the top 10...

 

It starts out sweet, almost cloyingly so... but then it deepens and becomes more resin-y. The honey comes out and it is seriously gorgeous.

 

Definitely one of the best GCs I have tried in a long long time.

[Juushika]

In the vial: I don't like it, but I can't pin down notes. It's resinous (so benzoin, probably) but it has an odd, off-color, musty funk. Unpleasant.

 

On me: On skin level it's red musk, flushed and warm, but thickened by the resin/caramel combination which gives the scent an almost malliable texture and makes it cling to skin-level, thick and sensual. The throw has more of the honey's sweetness and is actually quite lovely. This one improves through the first hour of wear time, growing warmer, redder, and increasingly sexy. I want to like it (and often do!) but there's still something a bit funky about the resins that doesn't quite work for me. Scent-color is russet; throw is low, but wear length seems pretty healthy.

 

Verdict: This isn't quite what I expected. Bien Loin d'Ici is pretty bad in the vial, and though it much approves on the skin it retains some of the vial's funk. This is a deep, red, sensual blend, warm red musk thickened (but not too heavily sweetened) by caramel and resins. It's promising, but it's not quite me, and the resins seem a bit off to my nose. I suspect this blend may age well, so I'll hang onto my imp—but I don't see myself wearing it any time soon.

[MamaMoth]

How odd. I'm left wondering if my imp was mislabeled with this one. It smells like florals to me. Magnolia maybe, or lily.

 

Not what I was hoping for at all. :\

Edited October 23, 2009 by MamaMoth

[Calligrafiti]

I've just begun exploring perfumes, and this was one of two bottles (and six imps) that I ordered as a starter. I loved the description (actually, I love the way the BPAL description copy is written in general). When I first put it on it seemed very intense, but that may just be because I don't usually wear perfume. It reminded me of something my mom wore for special evenings. An hour or so later and it has mellowed to a pleasant incense and musk scent.

 

I'm still figuring out what scents I enjoy wearing; I don't see myself wearing this much. It's not bad or unpleasant, but it doesn't really do much for me.

[theandorran]

In the bottle: I can't place what this smell is. It's very odd. Maybe it's the benzoin? Or unguents? I'm not sure what either of these would smell like. But it's odd notes I can't place. No feeling associated with them, either. Sorry, this isn't very helpful.

 

Wet: Florals? What? A woody kind of floral. Cypress vines, maybe? Annnd... a touch of caramel. I was hoping for more caramel, more musk, more honey. But the sweet caramel accord is just barely there.

 

Dry: As it dries, the sweetness disappears. It becomes something that I think I smelled in a magazine sample or a department store once. Very generic men's cologne. Chemically, with weird, can't quite place it notes. Sad. This sounded promising, but I think my skin turns it into a mess.

[tajana]

Wet: Oh no. Fresh on, this is spiced, skanky honey. When honey goes bad on me, it's usually just sweet weird powder. This time, though, it smells like, um... sex. Not idealized sex, like, nobody took a shower recently and this is the sweaty aftermath.

 

Dry: The sex-smell lightens up on drydown. The sweet, vanillic smokiness of benzoin glows pleasantly alongside a hint of gooey caramel. That's an OK smell, but it's not nearly good enough to absolve for the continuing wafts of sex. The red musk is very present, and sharply so... this is pretty much lab fresh, and would benefit from some aging. Right now, it just smells vulgar. After forty minutes this has settled down into a generic spicy-sweet resinous musk.

 

Overall: I get the feeling that my review would be less negative in a few months or a year, when this has aged a bit, but for me, it's not worth waiting and hanging on to the imp, since the gourmand-oriental this promises doesn't excite me in the first place.

[Finch]

This is sweet, powdery, smokey incense with a feisty gold allure; something like a Wilde inspired den of iniquity.

[cfrancesca]

This is definitely powdery Nag Champa on me, which is so odd due to the notes (which I love separately). Not really liking it.. has one strong throw too.