Scorpio 2007

[Gin]

Fixed Water: the essence of passion.
Dark musk, wormwood, basil, dragon's blood resin, galangal, and opoponax.

Scorpio 2007 seemed a bit scary to me. I don't feel familiar with any of the ingredients, save for dragon's blood, and that's not always a winning note for me. As it turns out, this is not a scary blend at all. I actually find it soothing. It's herbal in a way that makes me think of Aveda--herbs + Aveda = spa/hair treatments = relaxation. Very nice and not what I expected at all.

[zankoku_zen]

No basil or galangal, which were two of the notes I was most excited about. This is really an herbal dragon's blood, less spicy and floral than it is most of the time... but still dragon's blood resin.

[dreamcatcher]

Been wanting to try this one for a while...

 

Wet: Musky and herbal

 

Dry: Softer-Herbal with a swirl of dark (licorice?) musk

 

Overall: I really like it-it suits me well!

[Monster]

I love the way this smells in the imp...sweet musk.

 

On my skin this is mostly musk with a bitter, spicy edge of wormwood. I'm not getting any dragons blood from this at all. If I am, it's only contributing to the resinous, smoky feel of the oil.

 

This dries into a thick, black resinous incense scent on my skin. I REALLY love the way this smells. The wormwood is more apparent as the perfume settles into my skin...like smoky absinthe.

 

A winner! I'll have to test out my imp a few times more to see if it's worth hunting down a full-sized bottle of this but, right now it's lookin' good!

[saralaughs]

The weird thing about this blend (and I am a Scorpio) is that I really don't care for any of the notes. It is just a perfect example that Bpal blends are sometimes more a sum of its parts rather than individual notes.

 

When I first apply, it is very sharp and bitter. Anise-like smells assualt me but it quickly fades into a sweet powdery musk for a bit. After a bit, I get warm incense wrapped up in deep, dark musk that is tamed by just the right amount of sweetness and a *hint* of floral. The powdery feeling mainly goes away. It ends up working very well on me.

 

The blend screams purple. Dark, dank purple. Purple that is almost black. Very deep, mysterious, sexy and quite complex if you take the time to notice.

 

Just like a scorpio.

Edited November 4, 2009 by saralaughs

[RottenLullaby]

When I first put this scent on back in 07 when it came in, it went powdery. I put it in the back of my box and didnt wear it for a long time but refused to sell my star signs scent. Well I'm glad I didnt! Ive since changed my diet a lot and a lot more BPAL blends work on me (yay for eating healthy!) I love the hearby and incense rich scent it has. I to have a hard time picking out notes with this one, except the dragon's blood and musk, which give me a sort of deep red feel. Is this the scent for the darkside of the zodiac? Ohh yes. Delightful.

[Lorelai1945]

In the imp and when wet this is very licorice-y. As it dries, I'm getting root beer and it's mellowing out. It gets sweeter, and then dries to sort of a powdery root beerish herbal scent. The herbs come out more and more as it is dry, and most of the sweetness goes away. Then- Oh hai Dragon's Blood- but not sweet. I really like the sweet stage- I wish it would've stayed there. As a Scorpio, I'm glad to have an imp, but I don't think I'll need more than this. This is quite the morpher.

[donnatron]

Bottle: Dark, sweet and sensuous. Very strong black musk backed by the sweeter dragon's blood.

 

Wet: While not an exact dupe this reminds me enough of a Snake Oil without vanilla to help give me a stab at the ingredients--definitely black musk and maybe a bit of the dragon's blood. The two show up distinctly in this blend and they also distinctly remind me of some of the grounding notes in SO.

 

Dry: The basil comes out strongly and while I was afraid I would smell like marinara I smell more like... a Vietnamese restaurant. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's more the smell of Thai basil and also the smell of sort of scrunching up and breaking apart basil in your hand--like I've got a big bowl of pho in front of me. There's an anise-y scent that might be the wormwood or might also just be my brain saying that Thai basil = pho = star anise. It's really quite interesting--like wearing Snake Oil out for Vietnamese food. But a totally idealized version where there are no smells of meat, fish or spring rolls. I'm more floored by how wonderful the basil note is than really put off by it. I really like this scent. It's definitely unusual and a bit magical, but overall fits the criteria of "dark, mysterious and slightly batshit" as my scent preferences seem to be drawn to.

 

Throw: Moderate.

 

Overall: I never really thought twice about this blend and then picked it up at a Meet 'n Sniff a few weeks ago. I'm glad I did because it is definitely a unique and lovely blend and while I probably won't need more than the bottle there are definitely times when I will need to smell like Scorpio. It is my ascendant, after all.

[DifferentDances]

Bottle: Dark musk and dragon's blood. I'm hoping the dragon's blood gets knocked way down on my skin.

Wet: The musk is about equal with the dragon's blood.

Drydown: Supersoapy dragon's blood. Ew!

Dry: And it's all gone. How disappointing!

 

My rating: 1/5

[Delirium1009]

In bottle/imp: Deep musks and resins with a slightly bitter undertone.

 

Immediately on skin: This is heavy on the musk and resin, but it’s a very powdery scent. It’s dry and slightly bitter with an earthiness to it but a slight warmth.

 

After a few minutes: This is so powdery on me, like dark, musky, baby powder poured over resin. There’s no sweetness in this at all, and the warm note has pretty much disappeared.

[voodoocatwoman]

This scorpion starts out pure herbs, slightly bitter. It quickly turns spicy. And the spice amps and amps and amps. Here comes MUSK!!!

 

It is a spicy musk and is powerful! While I have a handful of strong planets in Scorpio (Moon, Mars, Saturn), this one might be a tad too much for me.

[strahlend]

I'm a Pisces but I felt the need to collect all of the water astrological blends. Ahem. I get the perfumy element of dark/black musk and the dragons blood. It doesn't seem particularly herbal (basil) or bitter (wormwood) and I'm always confused what galangal and opoponax add to a blend but they seem to turn up in musky/woody/dark sorts of oils and so I sort of assume that they're there to round out these kinds of blends. Sometimes dragon's blood seems too sweet or candy like to my nose, but this is mainly a fantastic musky, warmly spiced dragon's blood blend.

[JazzieCazzie]

And with this review, I complete my trip through the Letter S as I near the end of my journey of reviewing and revisiting every one of my BPALs, A-Z, in preparation for a comprehensive swap list AND wish list, coming to a forum near you (really near you, if you're reading this post) soon.

 

A little background ... I discovered the original (2004) Scorpio when the first batch of celestials were being taken off the site, and I ADORED it ... here is a link to that review, since these threads are separate ...

 

2004 Scorpio review

 

However, reading the reviews for Scorpio 2007 intrigued me ... while the notes didn't sound the same, they DID sound like notes I'd like a lot, and it was being compared to some of my favorite blends like Schwarzer Mond (which I believe I revisited yesterday). I found a bottle on eBay and put in a bid, but during that span of waiting, a forumite was also selling a bottle so I bought that ... AND won the eBay ... so I now have two bottles of Scorpio. This review comes from an imp I decanted from one of the bottles.

 

IN THE IMP: Surprisingly "perfumey" without a specific note being recognizable on first sniff. Hoping that upon application that will change.

 

Dabbed on one wrist and in the crook of my arm.

 

WET: A deep, dark brown musk with a slight burn. Woody but not really resiny to me. I'm not getting ANY dragon's blood at all (surprising, since that tends to amp on me and is a favorite note of mine), nor basil, nor opoponax, ... and certainly none of the spicy sultry sweetness I recall from the original. I admit to being disappointed.

 

DRYDOWN: I've almost given up on this and then ... an hour or two later ... sniff the crook of my arm and ... divine. Kind of ambery and sultry and spicy. Really fantastic and worth waiting for.

 

OVERALL: I panicked unnecessarily. Scorpio is different but still wonderful.

 

On a scale of 1-5, a 4.6

[lizabelle]

When I got this imp through a forum sale I didn't realize there was dragon's blood in it, which almost always hates me. There's also opoponax, which almost always loves me. Which will win? This is BPAL wrestling! (No? Okay.)

 

This starts out oppressively resinous, kind of bitter and overpowering. I can see sensitive people getting headaches or sneezing because of it. Once it settles down there's that dragon's blood note that always shows up as cherry cough syrup on me with what I think I recognize as galangal by now (halfway between wood and a bitter, planty resin) and musk. This is heavy and dark and sticky resin--if I had to assign it a color I'd call it dark, dark red. There's opoponax trying to come out somewhere in there, but the dragon's blood overpowers it and makes it oddly sour. Not for me.