Arise, Lift Up Thine Eyes and See

[CiCi]

Champaca flower gilded with golden amber, Madagascar vanilla, Roman chamomile, and black nutmeg.

In the bottle: sweet floral

On my skin it changes and the light sweet ambery vanilla is more predominant than the floral was in the bottle. After warming up more, a more fragrant floral comes out, not overpowering by any means, but it's presence is there. This is more of a golden-y vanilla amber scent that's not too sweet or thick. I smell a glint of smokiness perhaps from the nutmeg, it's not spicy, but there is a certain edge to it that makes this a unique scent and very wearable. If you like amber and light vanilla then you will probably love this scent,

[dementia_divine]

In the decant: The champaca flower is the dominant note, followed by the golden amber. This combination of notes reminds me of BPTP's House of Unquenchable Fire atmosphere and linen spray (with more champaca and minus the awesome other notes). I'm not getting any of the vanilla note in the decant, so I hope it emerges on my skin!

 

Wet: The champaca flower is the most prominent note, and the amber remains the second strongest note. I really hope the other notes make an appearance, because I don't want this to be a champaca-dominant blend.

 

The blend seems to be getting slightly sweeter the longer it sits on my skin, but the champaca is still the dominant note.

 

Dry: The vanilla has made itself known. Huzzah! I am also getting a hint of the nutmeg. However, the champaca remains as the dominant note, and the amber is still present. This scent stays close to the skin.

 

Verdict: I like the drydown of this scent, but it is so faint that I really have to press my nose to my skin in order to smell it. I don't think I need a bottle of this, but I'm glad that I have a decant!

[MiasmaResonance]

Smells like pee in my decant?

 

On: Pee! Floral...pee. Slightly nutmeggy floral pee. It's like your old senile granny whom no one talks about, making a demented dessert.

 

AHHHH-

 

 

(The pee pretty much fades after a while, into a meh-light-floral perfume. Fooey.)

[kajacana]

In the imp/wet on skin: Strong, chemically-floral, department store perfume.

 

Drydown: Bounce dryer sheets?!?! WHAT?! It really does smell like fresh laundry to me.

It's not a bad smell, just not at all what I was expecting.

[khemistry]

Yep, dryer sheets!

 

I mean, I don't find dryer sheets to smell bad... but not what I'm looking for in a perfume!

 

I will say that I'm a floral hater, so this was a risky one for me. I was hoping for more vanilla and nutmeg. Alas, the stinky dry sheet flower comes in a stomps on my dreams.

Edited March 16, 2014 by khemistry

[strahlend]

First sniff – very light and airy incense. Airy sweetness.

 

Skin testing – this is very much like wearing nag champa incense. I like it very much.

 

After a while – yep, this is really, really nice. It's warm but light and airy but sweet.

 

Most certainly considering a bottle. This is the closest thing to wearing nag champa incense that I've encountered.

[Magycmyste]

I am a huge fan of champaca in the blends I've tried in it - it adds this ethereal quality to the scent that I love, and makes me go "Bottle, NAOW!!". I'm hoping all of these notes make an appearance in this, though.

 

In the imp: Interesting. It's light and airy, but darker than I expected. I think I'm getting the chamomile more than anything, to start. Maybe some amber.

 

Wet on skin: Definitely chamomile. I haven't had the greeatest luck with chamomile in perfume, but the other notes seem to be doing a good job of sweetening it up - hopefully they'll keep working at it.

 

Dried down: Getting to be a much more traditional floral, but it's a soft floral, rather than a hard, strong one. It's a quiet perfume on me, with champaca blends usually aren't.

 

Throw: Light and pleasant. There is a little bit of sweetness from the vanilla in the throw, but I'm not getting much of it.

 

Verdict: **** I do want a bottle, but I think I'd be happy with a partial. Hmmmm..... I have to admit, this is one of the first champaca blends that hasn't had me screaming to hoard bottles the moment I tried it (Touched Twice, I'm looking at you...)

[annemathematics]

I love champaca, am wary of chamomile but was overall excited to try this blend.

 

mostly on it's a classy, old fashioned perfume. I could smell the chamomile and nutmeg when wet, and now they are nicely and discreetly in the background, supporting a lovely blend of champaca, amber and vanilla. the throw is such that the air around me is nicely and very lightly scented without being too much for an office or elevator. lasts several hours and blends beautifully with implacable beautiful tyrant hair gloss. sweet!

[brilliantcat]

Sadly this one is a no-go right from the beginning. I was imagining lovely vanilla and incense but in the vial, it's floral and peppery from the nutmeg. On me, it starts floral and then dries down to dusty, powdery, old-lady perfume. I kind of want to blame the chamomile, it seems to ruin every scent I've tried with it as note.

[cinnamonster]

Wow! Soap. It's a bit like dryer sheets. Nice dryer sheets.

[Astarial]

In the imp, I get mostly a gentle chamomile with a touch of peppery spice hitting my nose, which I think is the nutmeg. It's sort of ethereal too, which might be the effect of the chapaca.

 

Wet, the champaca and amber come out more. It's warm and light, but the chamomile gives it just a hint of freshness. For a while, they all combine to make me think of the smoke and warm wax of a candle that has just been blown out.

 

The dry stage on this is really hard to describe. Still light, still fresh, still warm. I'll have to retest to see if I can get a better impression of what's going on.

[zankoku_zen]

Nutmeg, champaca, amber and chamomile on the drydown.

 

This smells like a smokier version of Sachs, with the addition of nutmeg and champaca.

 

It's incensey, slightly spicy, and there's a sharp note to my nose which actually I think is the chamomile.

 

Eh, not my type of blend at all.

[whitsunweddings]

In the imp: Champaca dominant. Quite smokey and incensey, but also fairly floral. Nice, hippyish.

Wet: Smoky, soapy, powdery mix of woods and incense.

Dry: Just a bit of a hippyish soap, really. Nice but not my thing.

[tinyvulture]

Wow, everyone's getting something different from this one. On me, it's nutmeg and vanilla, with a little bit of herbal chamomile, mixed with a soapy Indian incense. Like all those HEM incense packs they sell at gas stations, there's like 20 different varieties but they're all kinda soapy. I'd say it's like that, more than straight up Nag Champa. The floral champaca is there, but there's also a definite old lady soapiness. Which makes it sound like I hate it, but I actually don't. The nutmeg mixed with the incense somehow grabs my interest and keeps me coming back for another sniff, and I feel like I like it more every time I sniff! Wouldn't get a bottle but I won't swap my decant, either.

[lucycat]

In the imp: sweet powdery floral, with a hint of resin.

 

Champaca flower is the one note I’m unfamiliar with in this blend; to the best of my knowledge, this is the first BPAL blend I’ve tried that contains it. It also dominates the blend. I was hoping for stronger vanilla and amber, as in Hesiod’s Phoenix, but here the amber turns powdery. I don’t get nutmeg, chamomile, or vanilla at all.

 

This smells like very high-quality old-fashioned floral soap, like something I remember from my grandfather’s house when I was growing up.

 

There’s a very slight spiciness in the final drydown, but not definite enough to identify as nutmeg.

[thekittenkat]

In the imp: Chamomile and champaca.

 

Wet: Now some hints of the vanilla appear.

 

The dry-down: Just a touch of black nutmeg and the powder of the amber threatens. It's a nice skin scent, but nothing that I really need.

[mermaidsdream]

I spent last week wandering around the streets of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Having fantastic weather, many shop doors were wide open to the myriad of tourists: souviner shops, cafes, "hippie" shops, mystic shops,the open (flea) French Market Every so often, we would pass by an Asian man or woman sitting just outside the door to their store, asking passers-by if they wanted to come in for a massage. A breeze would blow down the streets, catching a myriad of scents, mixing them together, but the heady incense, comforting and warm, always prevailed.

 

This is what I get from this bottle, both out of the bottle and applied: the warm, comfort, ecclectic and magical smell of New Orleans. I received my bottle the day I returned from my trip, opened it up and with one whiff was transported back. I gave it about a week to settle before testing it out, and am wearing it today. In the bottle, I still get the warm, comforting incense smell, a likely combination of the amber and champaca. On drydown, I'm still getting a slightly-powdery, dryer champaca with not much vanilla, and perhaps a hint of nutmeg.

 

I'm glad I took the chance on this bottle, and really want to head back to New Orleans now

[thekittenkat]

In the imp: Chamomile and champaca.

 

Wet: Now some hints of the vanilla appear.

 

The dry-down: Just a touch of black nutmeg and the powder of the amber threatens. It's a nice skin scent, but nothing that I really need.

[milo]

I'm mostly getting champaca flower here. It's a nice incense, kind of sweet and intoxicating. If I were rich, I'd contemplate a bottle, but I do have my most favourite incense blends already, and don't wear them that much either.

[blu°]

(Copying from my ScentBase account, so this is more incoherent - not to mention downright ungrammatical - than usual. Please, forgive. I hope it still transports and impression of the scent as I perceived it.)

 

"17.04.14: This speaks to me even though I can see how it is similar to commercial scents. People on .org are saying dryer sheet, but since I don't have a clue about dryer anything, all I get is a somewhat high-pitched, but not, say slightly bitter rather than sour. Bitter-creamy with a mystical edge, the way those certain florals go, that are not simple and sweet, nor lush and sweet, nor sparkly nor red, nor clean. Of course, it's the champaca, a small petaled, slightly metallic floral that smells of India.

 

Close to the skin it reads more soapy. The chamomile is a dominant layer throughout this scent. It structures the whole and tinges it with a shade of almost blue.

 

Hm. Sadly, it seems to turn into a bit of a mess. It certainly is tending towards very soapy up close. I'll leave it be for a while and will get back on how the throw makes itself known later on, in a few hours or so.

 

Later: Well, it's not bad. It's rather interesting how sometimes a warm, vanillic note peaks through the champa-chamomile metallic-oriental. It's rather incensey, yet clean-metallic and with a warm undercurrent. Possibly not bottle-worthy although it might become more rounded and lose some of its soap with ageing. I'd love to age a bottle of this, actually. Hm."

 

I actually decided to go for that bottle because I kept being delighted by the whiffs of the light champa-chamomile-vanilla mix throughout that day. Am wearing it again today, and can confirm that on me it is mostly champa-chamomile with a very light vanilla and amber sneaking in during the drydown and smoothing out the florals. I am not sure about the nutmeg. It's just one of those notes that eludes me.

 

I find this scent to be grown-up feminine with a natural refinement about it. Not a wilderness scent, but one of calm repose within oneself without care about externalities, maybe? I see a calm woman who is very zen in all her doings, in a summer garden in some place close to a desert, a light breeze, lightweight cotton or linen clothes, an inward smile on her face.

 

Also, the ankle of a bare foot on grass, and hair falling over a shoulder, all next to a bit of that lightweight cotton dress, which is white.

 

Oh, and there is water in that garden - the sound and smell of flowing water.

Edited April 19, 2014 by blu°

[non_boingy]

When I studied abroad in India, my host mom used to burn a very specific kind of champaca incense on her home shrine. We lived in a small apartment and the incense used to perfume everything--our clothes, our hair--until we were walking around in a cloud of scent. I really loved my host mom, and so whenever I smelled that particular kind of incense, even when I wasn't in the apartment, I associated it with her warmth and kindness. When I got back to the US I wasn't able to get the incense she liked so I tried to recreate the scent via perfume. Scherezade did the trick for a while, but Arise, Lift Up Thine Eyes and See is, for me, almost EXACTLY like the incense. On me it smells like a softer Scherezade, but it has a distinct nutmeggy undertone. I think the vanilla is what's causing the softness--I don't really get any chamomile but I'm not completely sure what a "chamomile" note smells like! I don't think it's wearable for everyone (it is, as others have stated, very headshoppy) but blu is right when she says it "smells of India." For me it's a very lovely, evocative scent of a wonderful woman who was present throughout a very life-defining and important time in my life, and I'm glad I got to try it!

[bellumed]

The champaca makes this sort of heady and perfumey, not really my style, though I enjoy the femininity and sweetness of this blend. Have to pass.

[filigree_shadow]

For sure champaca. Reminds me a lot of nag champa incense. I can't really smell much of anything else, to be honest. Mostly just nag champa.