Nightmare

[milo]

Vanilla-soaked linen accord with lavender, opium poppy, Moroccan jasmine, golden amber, white honey, and blackened fruit gums.

 

Wet, strong medicinal lavender with dark fruits. This reminds me of Moon of the Terrible, with the fruity lavender, one of my fave bedtime scents for the summer. Dry, dusty florals with the dark fruit. Something isn't meshing here, I'm guessing there is pom, which sometimes goes dusty on me. I was really hoping for vanilla soaked linen, but not getting that at all. Not for me.

[Viridian]

Wet, this is grapey floral, I guess jasmine though I get a rosey feel from it at times.

 

As it dries down this goes a little more classically perfumey than I'd been expecting - it's a dark floral with a little bit of a linen note. I definitely pick up the opium poppy, as it reminds me of Darkness, which used to be my signature BPAL. I wish I got a little more of the amber-vanilla-honey, but maybe as it ages those notes will peek out more.

 

It's very pretty on me,but I need to inventory and compare to see if it's special enough to keep. I feel like I have similar scents and I'm starting to move out of loving florals as well as I used to.

[OctoberGwen]

I've always loved the artwork that inspired this scent...so creepy and disturbing. The perfume, though, is absolutely lovely: a swirl of lavender and vanilla with enough opium to give it a perfectly sinister undertone.

 

Very happy that I bought a partial bottle off eBay!

[Leopard403]

I avoid lavender. I find it not just medicinal and reminiscent of a good facial, but totally overwhelming: Put lavender in a blend and I will not smell anything else. And yet I got my decant of Nightmare and fell in love with it, only remembering once I checked the notes that there was lavender in it at all!

 

On my skin, now that I know it is there, the lavender is soft and powdery, almost orris-like when it combines with the other notes. The vanilla grounds the scent well so that jasmine peeks around the corners, and the gentle notes that could easily have been overpowered by the lavender or amber are all present. Beautifully blended, this smells expensive, not "spa-like" at all.

[rivercitylizzy]

This one must be appealing to my darker nature--the full-on Scorpio (Sun, Mars, Mercury) I so often veil with my more well-behaved Virgo Rising--because damn I'm loving me some Nightmare

 

In the bottle: I first get the vanilla-soaked linens, rich dark sweet dried fruits (currants, maybe even dried black fig or plum), milky poppy, and dry white honey. I have to hover over the open bottle for a bit to pick up the florals in the background, but they're very faint here.

 

Wet on skin: as it warms up, I get more of the florals, and oddly enough the lavender and jasmine seem to dance back and forth on the drydown. It is thoroughly fascinating and I keep revisiting my wrists to see "who's on first" from moment to moment.

 

Dry on skin: The amber and vanilla and honey work well to tie the florals together in a lovely bouquet with the fruity notes woven in seamlessly. I am delighted with this hauntingly beautiful and slightly feral scent--this ends up where I wish Antique Lace had (although I may be the better for it, as Nightmare is both more accessible and less expensive). Backup bottle worthy for certain!

[ACVail24]

Nightmare

 

In the Bottle:

Dark & very dry - with a bitter quality to it

 

On my Skin, Wet:

The bitterness amps for about 10 minutes.

it must be the 'blackened fruit gums'

after the 10 minute mark the bitterness goes away and the resin and lavender make an appearance

 

On my Skin, Dry:

Evil bedsheets with sleep inducing lavender.

hmmm, interesting

 

Verdict:

not at all pleasant during the wet stage, and the dry stage is so strangely unique that I don't really know what to make of this one.

[whisperstilled]

In Bottle: Not what I expected at all, yet somehow totally appropriate! I smell linen, a touch of jasmine, and definitely opium poppy. The honey is, I think, present in the light sweetness, and there is something faintly fruity about it, though not in any definite way. The amber gives the whole thing a powdery quality. Amber tends to become baby powder on my skin, so fingers crossed that is not my fate today!

 

Wet: Linen, jasmine, amber. The honey is still there. This isn't the thick golden honey I like, it's more the powdery honey that reminds me of amber. I'm finally getting some vanilla off this, and the linen cleanness of it really is lovely.

 

Dry: As it dries, I get more opium poppy and linen, which really were the notes I was hoping for. The amber is lurking in the background threatening to turn into baby powder, but the other notes, specifically the fruit, which has mostly faded, seem to be keeping it just wet enough to work. Something gets a little musty about this as it dries, and it reminds me of a slightly jucier version of Sir Hugh Ockram's Winding Sheet. On final drydown, I get no fruit, a touch of amber, and mostly the vanilla-linen-florals trio, with lavender finally showing up on the drydown. Not as much opium as I would have liked, but it is there enough to make this a keeper. This is a light, dry opium/linen scent. It's a keeper, but time will have to tell and make sure this doesn't go super powdery in an hour or two and that the lavender doesn't amp up anymore. Still, pretty awesome. 4/5

Edited December 16, 2011 by Whisperstilled

[theseagrows]

i got this as a frimp in a decant circle. and how do i put this, but for the first minute or two, this has a poopy smell to it. literally. i think it's gotta be the combination of opium, jasmine and fruit? i don't know! but whatever it is, it smells disgusting on me. finally, that scent sort of drifts away and i am left with honey, jasmine and fruit. not really my kind of scent, as bpal's white florals get really amped and stinky on me. oh well, i am glad i got to try this, because i do love the artwork!

[filigree_shadow]

Hmmm. Not really sure what to say about this one. It's kind of equally a hazy lavender and a sweet fruit. I don't really get any jasmine or linen from it. Kind of a nice herbaly fruit blend.

[brilliantcat]

Wet I get lavender, linen, and a hint of the dreaded jasmine. Please behave! I love all of the other notes! Something in this blend does indeed keep the jasmine in check but it fades disappointingly fast. Before it does so, I get linen, light lavender, and perhaps some of the opium and amber. It's light and ephemeral but I do wish it lasted longer.

[starfish327]

...This is amazing. Seriously, this has joined my list of 'must have more' blends.

 

in the imp: very floral and green, bright. This does not feel 'nightmarish' to me, and I don't normally do well with light florals and green-the only real exception is Vampire Tears, so I use that as my comparision point.

 

wet: Very light and still very green. I'm not sure what's keeping this from amping into screaming white floral hell, but this very much behaving itself. I'm starting to get the fruit gums.

 

Dry: Holy crap. This is amazing. I get the florals but as a background, and early dry is Vampire Tears and vanilla. I would love if it just stayed at that point. But then it slowly starts to moprh into vanillas and a much more restrained version of the cherry note from Suck It. I want to roll in this stuff.

[porcelina]

this is like TKO's evil twin- dark, herbal lavender with a touch of vanilla and clean linen, backed up by warm amber and with touches of jasmine here and there. i could wear this to bed for sure but i'm a little scared i'll have bad dreams!

[whisperstilled]

In bottle: Faint vanilla, strong poppy, lavender, and jasmine. A strange and pleasing combination, a floral and sweet lavender. It reminds me a bit of The Serpentine, but the poppy pulls it away from that, making it a little headier.

 

Wet: Maybe a little too sweet! The 'blackened fruit gums' I think are cherry, since that's what I first get a blast of. It smells really, really strongly like cherry vitamin gummies.

 

Drying: The poppy comes out a little more on the drydown, but it's missing the heady 'nightmare' quality I hoped for. The dark fruit overpowers on this one a little. Still, this is extremely well blended and very interesting. I agree with a previous reviewer - awesome, just not on me, although now it most strongly reminds me of Blood Countess.

 

Dry: Maybe I need to give this one a full-day test! It's light on me, not much throw, but it's almost pure, sweet poppy after a few minutes. What a morpher.