Bensiabel

[Saya]

Plum juice, lilac, leather, and a smattering of herbs.

When first applied each of the notes listed are easily identifiable. The blend is pretty balanced and no one note dominates the scent. Shortly after application the leather becomes stronger while the plum and lilac settle into the background.

Typically I adore the lab's leather and lilac blends and this is no exception, but for some reason the way these elements combine isn't doing much for me. Nice blend, but not awesome.

I may keep the imp to test again later and see if it changes, but based on this test, I wouldn't purchase a bottle. Edited February 6, 2010 by Saya

[gingiemay]

No leather, just plummy lilac and herbs. It's a little bit too sweet on me and I was hoping for a soft leather to balance it out. Swaps it is!

[septima_pica]

Very sweet plum dominates right away, with just a little lilac and the soft, light-brown leather from Whip and Shrunken Heads. Something here is keeping it from being as teenage-girly as I would expect from the description -- perhaps it's the leather?

 

Somehow I had managed to avoid trying anything with the Lab's plum note until now, and it's surprising me a bit. It's not the sweet-sour little backyard plums that I'm used to picking, or the honey-floral-scented Santa Rosas that you usually see being grown commercially; it's something else with a less sour skin and more of a vanillic scent -- I wonder what kind? Is this what European plums are like, as compared to the Japanese varieties? There's still a tartness to it, unmistakably, but it's got a brown-sugary middle note that I don't ever think I've smelt in a fresh plum. Interesting.

 

Anyhow, Central Valley stone-fruit geekery aside, I rather like this. While I thought about plums, the leather note developed and the lilac died down; plum and leather now dominate. Good stuff, and not nearly so excessively sweet and fruity as I initially feared it would be. Not an instant love, but merits further testing.

[musichappens]

This is weird ... I can't detect a single note listed; all I smell is something funky that makes my nose tickle like crazy. I'll keep my imp to try it again in the future to see if it ages into something better.

[sunlitgarden]

Bensiabel

 

A frimp from the lab. I like lilac but probably would not have chosen this on my own because of the leather, which I'm iffy on. Bensiabel is a fruity floral, a little bit too heavy and cloying for me. I don't really smell the leather at all when it's wet, but it comes out a bit more as it dries down. It's okay but not particularly memorable to me. I like the idea of fruity florals but a lot of them are just not working well on me.

Edited May 2, 2010 by sunlitgarden

[Myrrha]

Wet: a light, understated lilac scent with a bit of purple fruit. The fruit does not get fake and plastic on me.

 

As it dries: the leather comes out and the purple fruit becomes a background note.

 

Dry: Something about this tickles my nose. It is a nice, light, feminine scent but with a bpal twist. The leather keeps it from smelling very young or like a typical fruity-floral. There are so many really special and outstanding BPAL scents to choose from, I feel like this is nice but not as wonderful as many other scents in the GC. If you are specifically looking for a fruity floral but want something more grown up and elegant this might be one to try.

 

 

[Dharklady]

In Bottle: lilac and herbs drifting in soft plum.

Wet: A soft lilac. Whereas the lilac in Dragon’s Eye is sharpened by the other floral, the lilac here is damped down by the plum and leather.

Dry: Stays fairly true to the wet scent. A quick fader so it will likely need to be slathered on. Oh schucks.

Notes: A beautiful lilac toned by the other notes. Soft and gorgeous full bodied, definitely a keeper and easily replaces Dragon’s Eye as my favorite lilac scent!

 

[tailoredshirt]

This is not quite what I was expecting. I am often disappointed with leather blends because I love leather, but I hardly ever get the amount of leather I'm looking for. I suspect this is more to do with my chemistry and preferences than anything else, so it's not a knock on BPAL's leather blends!

 

Anyway, this is mostly fruit and lilac on me. The plum juice smells a bit like pears on me, but I think I'm just really bad at picking out different fruits, since I don't really like fruity scents. I don't get any leather at all. Overall, this is pretty, but nothing really remarkable on me.

[milo]

Wet, this is all about the plum. It actually kind of reminds me of Bordello. As it dries, there is a powdery herb quality, and maybe a teensy bit of leather. I probably wouldn't have noticed it was there, but I peaked at the description. Nice, but I don't think I need a bottle.

[Venneh]

In the imp, I'm getting plum, lilac, and leather. On my skin, the same. Hm. We'll see how this goes... Dries down to plum/lilac with a bit of leather behind, giving it a full skin test.

Edited June 22, 2010 by Venneh

[SophieCedar]

Wrist away from nose, the leather note is strongest, followed by lilac. Wrist closer to nose, plum juice is warm sweet and slightly tart with fresh brown leather second and a waft of lilac. I really like the color impressions: light and dark purples with warm brown and flashes of red.

 

This stays the same on drydown too! nice!

[theseagrows]

another frimp from the lab! interesting to try too, because i probably never would have chosen this one...

 

i am sort of liking the combination of lilac and leather, but the plum doesn't really work for me. for some reason, my skin chemistry turns bpal's plum to plastic nearly everytime. i end up smelling like a scented strawberry shortcake type doll when i try scents with prominent or heavy plum. however, after this soaks into my skin a bit, the plum hangs back a bit more and it's more like a spicy floral with slight plum? i'm liking it better now...not sure i would wear it much though.

[grrrlennyl]

Bensiabel

 

On: Incredibly herbal, with a lovely dose of lilac and some smooth leather.

1 hour in: This is sweeter now, and the lilac isn't as strong.

4 hours in: A powdery, leathery floral.

Overall: This was just OK on me. I wish the lilac were stronger and stayed around longer.

[suki]

Huh- usually the *slightest* hint of leather in a mix comes right out and amps up on me. This? I get none. What I DO get is a beautiful, sweet mix of lilac and plum. This isn't the uber-fresh lilac of Lilac Wood, this is definitely a softer, more perfume-y lilac. but the plum note seems to be the same juicy, candy-like sweet plum from Sugar Plum Fairy.

After this scent has completely and totally dried down I'm getting just a razor's edge of the leather. It's not even enough to come across as leather, just enough to give a bit of salty balance to all the sweet. It might just be the scent equivalent to those yummy dried salty plums one can pick up in Chinatown in New York, in fact!

 

I'm on the fence as to whether I'll get a whole bottle of this, but I have to say, there is something really unusual about this scent that keeps pulling me back in, again and again.

 

 

[frecklestars]

In the bottle: plum juice and leather, a handful of herbs. if the lilac is there, it's only just, and the floral is overwhelmed by the juiciness of the tart plums and the harshness of the leather. I adore the dark mysterious aspects of this, and it's certainly complex in ways that I didn't expect. not sweet, but rich like wine.

 

On my skin: lilac and a bit of plum juice like wine. the herbs disappear a bit in light of the leather. it's rich, like a banquet table in an abandoned castle, and very complex. I like the plums, but it doesn't really stick around, and I wish the lilacs showed up more in this one. dries fully to a smoky-dark musk.

 

Last thoughts: powdery the longer I wear it, which I hate about it. the lilacs and leather are a little kinky, definitely unconventional.

[virusq]

This was a frimp I received in my first BPAL purchase. I think they threw it in based on all the leathery/dwarfy scents I ordered, mixed with all the floral/fruity scents my sister ordered. I can imagine someone behind a desk going, “Did they just not see this one?” So, I gave it a shot. I was really hoping the leather and herbs would poke through, but I really didn’t get anything distinct from this imp. Excellent idea! Poor execution with my skin chemistry.

[rhubarb3point14]

Oh, dear. I don't think I like this one. Out of the bottle, it has a very appealing fruity burst of plum, almost grape. But then, as it dries down, the plum shares the stage with lots and lots of leather, far too much for my tastes. I never do get much in the way of lilac -- at least not the fresh, dewy lilac that I would prefer.

 

This smells sort of soapy and grandfatherly to me. It is also very intense. I think I might have to wash this one off.

[coldandsleepy]

Gentle tones of plum, soft powdery leather, and... hair spray? The plum is nice but a bit understated on me, more mild than some BPAL plums. The leather is quite nice and reminds me of the leather in The Ta-Ta in a good way. But something about the rest of the scent is screaming hairspray! hairspraaaaay! to my nose.

 

Despite this, I don't dislike it. It just kinda reminds me of how my mom smelled in the early 90s. (Like hairspray.)

[lohengrin]

In the imp: Leather and a little bit green, maybe the herbs?

 

On skin, wet: Lilac and just a hint of leather, darn it.

 

On skin, dry: Wait, the leather is back, yay! The lilac has faded into the background and instead of going soapy, it just smells a little bit clean and fresh.

 

After an hour: Leather and that clean/fresh scent the lilac somehow morphed into. Unless it was the herbs doing that and overwhelming the lilac. Either way, I am very happy with this even without getting any trace of the plum.

[neuilly]

Tragically on my skin this is massively amping the leather...and it seems to be mixing with something mysterious to create a bandaid smell. I only smelled lilac before it began to dry which made me quite sad as I ADORE Lilac. Lovely wafting plum though, but I'll stick to Prunella for that.

[catalyst]

Based on the notes, I thought I'd like this a lot, and it was on my wish list for a long time, even if I was worried about the lilac.

 

Unfortunately...

 

If there was leather in here, which is one of my very favorite notes, I never found it. It's mostly plum juice, lilac, and what I assume is herbs over what could be leather maybe if you use your imagination.

 

This is one blend where all the elements seem to be fighting with each other instead of harmonizing, if that makes sense. They just do not work together as a scent.

[KittyHawk]

You know that vacant storefront in the rundown strip mall in the shady part of town - the one that used to be a Borders or an electronics store or a California Pizza Kitchen - that gets turned into a Halloween store after Labor Day? THAT'S what Bensiabel smells like. Not the latex masks or the greasepaint or the flimsy polyester costumes - the entirety of the store itself. I get the plum juice - and it's definitely juice, no doubt about it; it's very sweet and thin, not dense and textured like the plum in, say, Prunella - but I also get a lot of the leather and herbs. It's vaguely masculine, I suppose, but I just cannot get over the fact that it smells like a Halloween USA. I don't understand it, and I really don't understand why I like it so much, but I do. I can't see myself ever purchasing a bottle, but damn, I need to keep this on hand for winter, spring, and summer when I'm itching for the feel of autumn.

[paraphrased]

As a vegetarian, I never expected a 'leather' blend to feel so... me. And although I don't avoid leather notes, I would never have picked this myself. In fact, I so ignored the Marchen category I didn't try it for 3 years.

 

But I am in the debt of whoever tossed this in their envelope to me.

 

In the air around me, it's a pale leather, lilac, and herbs. It's a light scent, but spreads well. It's somewhat dry, masculine but gentle.

 

You can't smell the plum unless you stick your nose right up to my arm. At that distance, though, it smells like plum, lilac, and freshly-washed skin, even when I have no right to smell freshly-washed.

[fufu_berry]

This is all lilac all the time on me. It smells like something I used to use as a kid - maybe a scented eraser? Not my favorite.

[stillalive]

Straight out of the bottle, I smelled leather, but it was softened by something sweet and maybe floral. It actually reminds me a lot of sniffing the paper that used to come on crayons. I don't know if crayon papers still smell that good, but that's what it reminds me of. The longer it dries on my skin, the more it feels like some sort of spicy but otherwise unnoticeable herb comes out. It's not an offensive smell, but it's also not so amazing I need a huge bottle of it. I'm not even sure I'll finish the imp. However, I think any leather-and-floral fans out there will really like this one.