Review of Antony by BPAL

[lunabee34]

The Catalog Description

The embodiment of Classic masculinity. A warrior’s scent: the green hills and grasses of the battlefields, the resinous incense from the prayers to his Gods, and a touch of the musky leather of his armor. Ambergris and frankincense with sage, and basil.

The Forum Reviews

The forums generally classify this as a masculine scent with many women reporting that they enjoy wearing it and that it makes them feel powerful. (Not every set of forum reviews can contain such a gem as Bread and Butterfly's "plastic baby doll head" comment, alas. LOL)

Our Reactions

Emma (the 11 year old): "This smells like an old man rolled himself in dirt, gasoline, and weird metal. Bad!" And she washes it off (the first perfume she has washed off; even though she didn't really like Incantation much, she still didn't wash it off)

Josh: (who smelled my wrist after the morphing process had completed) "This smells like baby powder."

Me: At first I smell sage and basil and a strong metal smell which quickly turns into an overpowering smell of gasoline that slowly burns off. I smell leather and something incensy, probably the frankincense. I smell nothing at all sweet in this scent to start with. It reminds me a bit of Juke Joint, and I wonder if they have ambergris in common. It's either the frankincense or the ambergris that I'm smelling as gasoline; my money is on the ambergris. And then it starts to get a little sweeter and more powdery, and I almost like it for about ten minutes, and then BAM!, all I can smell is baby powder. I wondered as I was reading forum reviews and everyone else's posts on smellsgood what everyone was talking about when they said a perfume had turned to powder. Now I know.

My imp of Antony is up for grabs. Free to anyone who wants it; I'm waiting to mail out giveaways until I finish testing this first round of imp purchases in case anyone wants more than one, but let me know if you're interested, and I'll reserve it for you. :)


And now, for the wonderful sallymn who made the lovely icon I'm using, have a double drabble of Daniel Jackson gen set during season 5's episode "Summit."



Antony

Daniel doesn’t know where the slave garb the Tok’ra gave him came from, but he certainly isn’t the first person to wear it. The leather collar and belt smell of incense, herbs, and something faintly metallic that Daniel can’t quite identify but suspects might be blood. He can’t help but wonder if the slave who wore these clothes before him died in them. Slaves who rise to the rank of lo’taur are prized but considered as expendable as other humans. That unknown slave may not be the last person to die in these clothes if Daniel can’t manage to hide his identity from Lord Yu.

Daniel quickly discovers what has perfumed the leather he’s wearing. Lord Yu drinks a tea, popular among the Goa’uld and made from herbs that must be ground by hand. As Jarren, he is expected to spend two hours each morning preparing tea for the day. By the time Daniel is finished, the scent of the herbs has worked its way into his pores, his hair, along with the sweet incense Yu keeps burning in his bed chamber. It’s enough to bury the tang of blood that clings to the leather, enough to mask Daniel’s fear.

Comments

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I grew up around jasmine and a lot of other tropical florals, which can be kind of a mixed blessing - it's easier to identify scents that you're familiar with in the natural form, but it can also make you incredibly picky about them!

Sniffing flowers and such directly isn't always an option, but if you can find a local retailer that sells perfume oils (Whole Foods often has a display in their beauty aisle), sniffing and sampling the testers may help you get a handle on what some of the more common elements smell like.

[lunabee34]

Next time we take a trip to Atlanta, I think I will do that. Rydra_wong linked to somebody who did just that and reported about it (maybe teaotter?), and it sounded really helpful.