Fearful Pleasure

[NixieCakes]

Dried orange peels floating in simmering cider, roasted apples, smoldering firewood, chimney smoke, sassafras beer, warm hawthorn wood, and oakmoss.

It gets too "red-hots" cinnamon for my skin.

[Dianora]

Oh, this is love! It is the scent of a perfect, cozy autumn evening in a bottle. In the bottle, I smell apples and something slightly pine-y-- oakmoss, perhaps? When I slather it on my skin, the first impression is almost overwhelmingly good. It's apple cider with spicy oranges mixed in, all delicious and sharp and mouthwatering. It is foody, but in a very autumn spice kind of way rather than sweet baked goods. I almost crashed my car on the way to school because I had my nose glued to my wrist. Dry down is equally spectacular, the apples become sweeter and the spices mellow into something that isn't quite as foody, but still a very evocative autumn scent. The throw of this is, on my scent-eating skin, quite good, and it seems to last several hours.

 

This is what I was hoping Samhain would be before it went rancid on my skin: the absolutely perfect autumn perfume. I adore this, and I can see this becoming my signature scent for the season. In fact, I wish I'd ordered more bottles because I want my whole house to smell like this.

[Czarina]

This is a wonderful, warm, mellow apple scent (in sharp contrast with the ice of Snow Glass Apples!). This is definitely hot cider by the fire. Borders on smelling like a Yankee Candle, but doesn't fall over the edge. Would also be excellent in an oil burner.

[Saya]

In the Imp

Smells like apples and oranges with a bit of spice, it reminds me of a cheap candle you’d buy at a grocery store. Hopefully it will change a bit once I apply it.

 

On My Skin

Wow, this is a potent blend! I’m it smells like a cup of warm apple cider next to a fire. It’s still got a waxy/plastic element to it, but I’m really hoping it fades soon.

 

After a Bit

Now it's mellowed into something other than a Yankee candle scent. I really like the scent this has evolved into.

 

Rating 1-5 (5 being the best)

Scent - 3.5 Throw - 3 Longevity – 3

Overall (not an average) – 3.2

Final thoughts

I really like what this blend turns into. It mellows down into a delicious cider blend. At first it’s a little fake smelling but then it turns into a very realistic smelling spiced cider. I’ll have to test again to see if it’s bottle worthy.

[Lady]

I absolutely LOVE this scent! Foody smells are my favorites and usually work well with my chemistry. When I wear it, it's almost like a full October night celebration.

 

Wet it's fresh apples and spices.

 

Dry it's a fully cooked fresh batch of hot apple cider, sweet and spicy and delicious.

 

After a few hours it mellows down and a little smokiness starts to work its way into the cidery smell, like a fireplace fire that has just been put out.

 

I bought a bottle before the Halloweenies came down and my only regret is that I didn't buy two!

[myth]

I really did not expect to enjoy this because apples in a blend almost always make me feel ill. Imagine my surprise to find myself oddly compelled to keep sniffing it as I tested. And more surprise to find myself further compelled to slather my decant of it another day soon thereafter. A bottle purchase was bound to follow. The crack is strong with this one.

 

It's delicious roasted cidery apples [which seem to work much better for me than fresh ones, because I also don't mind the apple in 2008's Harvest Moon], and orange and spice and wood and smokiness and just complete autumnal deliciousness. I cannot believe how much I love this.

[gchris]

in vial: sweet , fuity and fresh

 

wet: apples, fresh cut and something else. This is a nice blend. Maybe the hint of something spicey in the background. Probably the cider..

 

dry: now I smell bandaids and it is getting stronger. This one did not end well.

[waternight]

In the bottle: Cider for sure - spicy, just a bit, like a warm, simmering cinnamon, without the ACKCINNAMONATTACK of some other blends. I smell the firewood and chimney smoke underneath the apple, which deepens the blend a bit. At first sniff, this is a much lighter, thinner apple scent than Samhain.

Wet: Apples roasting in the fire while sip hot cider. Just a touch of smokiness, and a bit of earthy oakmoss. Gets woodier and smokier as it dries, but never loses the cidery, appley goodness. The apple here is definitely of the cider/juice variety, as opposed to the dense, pie variety of Samhain. This is Samhain's lighter, woody/smoky sister.

Dry: This is so gorram delicious I can hardly stand it. This is sipping hot apple cider while sitting around a campfire. It's not overpowering at all, and incredibly wearable. I adore Samhain, and this is in the same family, but lighter. Easy to see why this is so popular. It will get a lot of wear from me!

[zomathesadist]

Wet in bottle: sweet apple.

 

on skin: still mostly appley, but not a sharp, in your face Granny Smith--this is the smell of apples gently warming.

 

Drydown: stays pretty appley with the spices in the background. It's nice, and it's a comforting fall smell. This is a nice smell for melancholy days where I stay home with a book. sadly, I don't get any of the smokiness or woods. but it's still lovely, and I have a feeling I'll reach for it alot.

 

Rating (1-10): 8.00

Edited December 9, 2008 by ZomaTheSadist

[djnevermore]

No BPAL apple, smoke and wood scents to date have been kind to me so I really hesitated to buy this. I usually end up smelling burned or like pencil shavings, though the notes always sound intriguing. I liked this at first but didn't love it and almost put it in the swaps pile. I tried it again and still wasn't too impressed. Then I smelled my wrist hours after application, when it was very, very dry. It was a wonderful, slightly sweet, creamy, woody scent with some frozen leaves tossed in. I was enamored with the dry-down!!!!!! Even though it took a while for the dry down to develop, I decided to hold onto the bottle. Well, my grip on that bottle has grown ever tighter because THIS apple note does not bother me and because I smell the dry-down scent faintly while it's wet now. I LOVE it.

And to boot, I just noticed its dry-down is very similar (to me) to Pumpkin King's dry-down. PK is my all-time fave scent and I have so little of it. The fact Fearful Pleasure has some similarities just thrills me. I can say with confidence that I intend always to keep this bottle!

 

Kudos!

Oh, yes, it was one of only two Halloween-released scents I even liked. Huesos de Santos is pretty groovy too.

[hereunto]

In the bottle: Smoky apple cider. Oh wow. I could totally drink this right now.

 

Wet: Apples, apples, and more apples. But in a sweet, spicy, cider-y way. I can't pick out the sassafras beer, but hey, there's some of the smoldering firewood. Yum. It's just like sitting on your front porch during a cool autumn night, drinking hot spiced cider and watching kids jump into piles of dried leaves next to a campfire.

 

Drydown: Very much the same as wet. The smells alternate between this delicious apple cider smell to the smoky scent of charred firewood and roasted apples. There might even be a leaf in there somewhere. It's absolutely stunning.

 

Overall: One of my favorite autumn scents. After smelling this in my imp, I immediately knew I needed a larger bottle. Gah, why didn't I buy a second bottle? My daughter absolutely loves this one as well and often asks to wear it. All in all, a gorgeous scent that has me huffing my wrists and wishing for a hot cup of cider right now.

[lady_pandora]

Opening the bottle, the first thing that hit me was the apple note, which seems to be the same apple note as the one in Poisoned Apple, which made me quite happy, as PA has been my signature scent for the better part of a year now.

 

I put it on, and the cinnamon and orange peel come to the forefront. Apple is there, but it's subtle. The cinnamon and orange peel have this lovely spicy holiday thing going on; it feels autumnal but also seems quite appropriate for the Christmas season. I can kind of see where the "It smells like a Yankee Candle" folks are coming from. It does smell a bit Yankee Candle-ish, especially during this early stage, but I love Yankee Candles and so this isn't a problem for me.

 

It stays pretty close to the skin on me, never producing a Cloud o'Scent even though I had a pretty generous amount on. I kept thinking it had faded, only to get a delightful wisp of spice or of apple out of the blue.

 

After a few hours, it dries down to a warm sweet apple scent, with just the slightest hint of smoke. The smoke is subtle on me; I have to be looking for it and have my wrist right up to my nose.

 

Poisoned Apple dressed up for the holidays, that's what this is. Same apple note, but with cinnamon and orange peel instead of the "poison" herbs. I'll be wearing this one a lot. I've been looking for a scent that "felt" like this for a long time. The "feel" of it (though the notes are different) is similar to the old iteration of Hamadryad, before it went all wintergreeny. I am a happy Pandora right now.

Edited December 12, 2008 by lady_pandora

[caitilarkin]

In the bottle: Red apple with whiffs of orange and smoke

 

Wet on skin: The apple fruit morphs to cider, faint spices appear and are laced with the orange and smoke notes.

 

Dry on skin: The apple cider and orange notes sweeten and intensity, with the smoke and spices (I get more clove than cinnamon) adding a bit of interest. This lasts about six hours on me, getting sweeter and brighter with time.

 

Other BPALers have compared Fearful Pleasure to Samhain, but on my skin there is no resemblance except for the presence of the apple. Fearful Pleasure is very light and bright versus the damp forest night evoked by Samhain. I may try layering the two in an effort to experience the dark and light aspects of autumn at the same time.

[Magpie]

In bottle: This reminds me of some kind of fruity fizzy drink, like Lilt or Fanta. It's sweet and slightly spicy, with a frisson of bubbles.

On: This kind of reminds me quite a lot of the Lynx deoderant my bf wears. I can smell an almost pine scent distantly now, underscored by a fiery scent, what I assume to be the sassafras beer (I've never smelled sassafras). It does seem to be settling down a bit into a warm spicy apple scent. Oh dear, it smells rather like thin fruit juice now, with a hint of smoke underneath. It's gone to almost smelling a little plasticky. The closest I can describe is some orange powdered squash someone brought for a LARP event I went to, in a little foil packet, which made the most disgustingly weak squash I've tasted. It isn't as bad as that, but still is kind of a weak orange.

 

Gah!! That was a weird moment - I just finished describing how it was all weak orange squash and then sniffed my wrist and suddenly, there was the smoky and woody notes I'd been missing, and the rich cider, though it's all quite weak still. But very nice...this one might take some more testing. Um, also bizarre...it smells different on one wrist to the other. On my left wrist, it's a slightly smokier orange - on my right, it's a handsome woody apply resiny smoke. On my neck, it smells different again! They're all lovely, but I like the right wrist scent best. I've had a similar experience with Jack, which smelled like pumpkin on my neck and gingerbread on my wrists, with very little indication that they were the same scent. Very pretty, if I can get it to work on me! I very much hope that testing this another time will yield more definite results.

 

Over time, this becomes a soft skin-scent of sweet, orangey cider with a woody undertone, but for some reason on me has little throw.

[Nimthiriel]

Initial impression:

Apples and woody notes, quite yummy!

 

First on:

Apples, orange zest and something warm and spicy.

 

Dry:

After about an hour, this is a pleasing and warm scent – it's very comforting, slightly foody and very woody. I really like it.

 

Finally:

I'll put this in my keepers box, but I might swap it if something amazing comes along...

[Lethran]

In bottle: Rich mulled cider. So many apples. The sassafras adds a sweetness over a faint hint of wood. Wet: The complexities of the blend come out on the skin, though the apple stays dominant. The orange peel manages not to amp too much, which is a blessing. The wood and smoke coke out, giving the whole thing a wild edge. I am pleased. Dry: The peels are stronger, or perhaps the apple weaker. It is a pleasant wassail scent, with a rich, smoke/wood undertone. Very fall, very pleasing.

[secretstars]

this just smells like pure mulled apple spice to me! which is exactly what i wanted. thank you, bpal!!

[nellieburger]

In the imp: I’m walking through an apple orchard while sipping hot cider! Yum!

 

On me: Apples galore! It’s so delicious! I MUST have a bottle!!!

[Luxari]

I guess I'm not in the majority here, but I couldn't even bring myself to put this on my skin.

 

Maybe it's because it doesn't age well, but in the imp it was rank of heavy musk and another note that I cannot name, but if I could imagine what fear smelled like, it would be that.

 

Fear and musk. Not something I wanted on my skin. I recoiled from the bottle.

 

I hope i just got a badly aged imp. =( the other descriptions sound like it should smell lovely.

[Dracoo9]

As much as I like this blend I dont really get apple cider from this like I wanted it to be. It smells like and immitation apple cider gone a bit off I'm going to hold on to it anyway though. This is a really nice fall scent and it has a nice spicey edge to it to offset all the sweet and fruity blends I have. It has a decent through and long wearlength.

[ami226]

So, I had originally gotten an empty bottle of Fearful Pleasure from a forumite. Since all I could smell was a very strong/strange cinnamon, I decided that I didn't like it...

 

Well, I decided to try again by purchasing a full bottle from another forumite and.... OMG!!

 

In the bottle: Lovely spiced apples!!

 

On the skin: Oh, this is soooo lovely! I do not think of myself as a foody scent loving person, but this one just smelled so homey and relaxing!! It is definitely spiced apples of some kind. This has also been one of the only scents that didn't change at all from bottle to skin (Woo hoo!!) Lab's apple note FTW!! I also did the boyfriend test and he said "Mmmmmmm!" So this one is definitely a keeper! He is very hard to please when it comes to scents. Yay! Definitely going on my Love it list!

[filigree_shadow]

I like this one pretty well. It smells very autumn-like to me. I can smell the apples and cider and smoke in it -- definitely some wood too -- and the sassafras scent gives it an unusual kick. A spicy orange scent is fairly prominent at first, but it mellows out as it dries. I don't think I'd need a bottle of this, but I'll probably keep the imp around for a while. It reminds me fairly strongly of all those "harvest" scented candles you can buy in the fall.

 

EDITED 12/26/09:

Kept this one around to re-test. I'm testing it again now, and... it has a definite alcoholic quality to it. Like rum. Reminds me of the boozey aura I got from Velvet Clown. Weird. I think this one just isn't going to work on me.

Edited December 26, 2009 by filigree_shadow

[Ajila]

In the bottle – A tiny bit of spice and then pure apple

 

Wet on me – Again the apple; this time laying on a bed of sassafras

 

Dry on me – A sweet, soft musk with just a hint of soft, rounded apples

 

Overall – Much, more delicate and feminine than I expected, but on the whole very pleasing

 

[Kittenmorag]

I've been trying to get a nice apple cider scent for a while now, and when this year's Halloweenies came out, I was very excited- couldn't spit without hitting an apple note!

 

In the bottle- A green, round note, probably the apples and cider. Very sharp but not unpleasant on the nose.

 

On the wrist- The sharp settles out, becoming more red and slightly caramelised. The smokey notes start coming to the front more. After about fifteen minutes wear... you know how in those horse books you used to read as a kid, they'd describe giving their horse a mash feed? It smells like I imagine that- oats, carrots, apples and molasses (Carrots? WTF?!). I can see the oats being the sassafras beer and traces of the hawthorn, but the other notes really escape me as to what on earth they could be. I'd say it was just my overactive imagination, but my friends have smelled it on me and tell me that yes, I really smell like a scene out of Saddle Club. After about half an hour, the smoke is more sniffable, the apple shifts between red and green, and you can smell the orange peel, but I still smell like a horse treat. Not that this is a bad thing- it's nice to have a savoury food-ish smell. However, it really smells like the archetypal American/European country autumn, like sitting around a fire and roasting apples and swapping stories with popcorn and beer. The apple doesn't powder out on me, which makes a NICE change.

 

Overall- The scent is subtle, but I can still smell horse mash hours later. It doesn't trigger any allergic snuffling in me, which is nice, and makes for a good everyday scent that's subtle enough for people to just ignore if they like, but still interesting enough that people will want to snuffle you. It's a very wholesome, country scent, and I'm glad I bought a bottle.

 

EDIT- Two hours later: Oh wait, THERE'S the beer! And the oranges! Very nice. Compliments the oats nicely

 

=^..^=

Edited February 24, 2009 by Kittenmorag

[kjirstiben]

Initially applied, this scent smells just like spiced cider. Over time, it mellows and its components smooth together, so the apple, spices, and such aren't distinguishable from one another. In its later stages, there's a certain soapiness about it at times, but not in a bad way.

 

This is a good, warm, cidery comfort scent. Great for autumn and winter.

 

Recaplet: Spiced cider that mellows over time.

My rating: 3 of 5 (Nice enough.)

Color impression: Apple cider brown.