lunabee34 | Perfume Reviews

Emma and I tested some perfume tonight. I haven't tested anything in quite awhile (despite having an enormous stash), and my nose has atrophied as a result. I had a hard time distinguishing individual notes in what we tested tonight. Oh, well. Only thing to do for it is to practice more often! :)

This is not what we tested tonight but another chip at the backlog of perfumes we tested ages ago.

Kumiho: A sharp, biting blend of crisp white tea and ginger.

Emma was not interested in this one; frankly, her initial passion for testing perfumes has steadily waned over the last year. I think she was more interested in the BPAL marketing than the actual scents. I'm hoping to get her interested again by regular testing; she has a really good nose when she's not being 13. LOL

I love Kumiho. It's in the same family as Bath and Body Works White Citrus and BPAL's Embalming Fluid, and Envy, Phobos, and Whitechapel. It wears nicely: a lovely, spicy ginger. It's not as fleeting as Embalming Fluid. It's perfect for layering with the perfumes I've listed here.

I like it enough to eventually get a big bottle.

Eden: fig leaf, fig fruit, honeyed almond milk, toasted coconut and sandalwood.

Emma thinks this smells only of coconut, which she despises (both to eat and smell).

I think it is very reminiscent of Bread and Butterfly but without the eau de plastic baby doll head. Back when we tested this, I did so before reading what notes it contains and was able to identify the following notes with no prompting: toasted coconut and almond. I was very proud and wrote yay in my notebook. LOL This is why I've got to start testing again; I had gotten rather good at picking out notes, and now I feel as if I'm starting over again to a certain extent.

Not a keeper.

Strangler Fig: Rooty, woody, with deep green tones.

Emma thinks it smells fresh and strangely of chocolate. She likes it okay but not enough to wear.

When I take a whiff, I also smell boozy chocolate which I do not like at all. Over time, I like it a bit more; a green leaf smell emerges along with some sort of wood, maybe cedar.

Josh thinks it smells like sandalwood and patchouli; he is not a fan. Not a keeper (the perfume, that is; I'm keeping Josh).

Rumpelstilzchen: Firewood and ash with an oddly otherworldly blend of patchouli, cardamom, nutmeg, black pepper, tonka, vetiver, and myrrh.

Emma: "Oh, yuck. This smells like Iago."
Me: "Oh, yuck. This smells like cedar and gasoline."

So, a noxious mixture of Iago and Antony.

Take away musings from tonight's testing session plus typing up these notes:

1. I can almost always tell how much I will like a BPAL by the color of the perfume in the vial. The darker the perfume, the more probable my distaste. I have almost universally liked the lighter colored perfumes we've tried because they are based on white musks, citruses, and teas.

2. I should not despair that my nose is entirely gone. When I went to an upscale shopping area in Atlanta with my friends a few weeks ago, one of the stores was burning a Diptyque candle. I instantly gagged and thought, "That is some jasmine, there," and I was totally right. LOL

Crossposts: http://lunabee34.livejournal.com/479264.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

kore

I think she was more interested in the BPAL marketing than the actual scents

HAH, I think that is the actual raison d'etre of BPAL -- I used to wonder sometimes if she might ever be tempted to relabel the same scents!

From:

lunabee34

Oh, no doubt.

The packaging, the names, the little stories attached to each perfume, the limited edition scents--I'd say easily 75% of the allure stops and starts there.

I mean, I have found some scents that I think are truly fine and that are competitive with the commercial perfumes in terms of my desire to wear them. But I think we've tested about 80 BPAL so far and of that 80, maybe only 5-10 make that cut.

I've noticed that many of the scents smell pretty much the same: the citrusy white musk ones are almost interchangeable, the woody green ones are really similar and etc. I don't think it's that the same scents are being relabeled but I do think BPAL has few scents that really are unique and standalone. More like a handful of scent families.

From:

kore

....dude, I wound up buying so fucking many Dracula based BPALs back when I had actual money, it was kind of sad. I don't even LIKE what she did with Lucy Westenra. But Lucy Westenra is My Girl, so I had to have it! I console myself with the thought people have had worse habits, as long as I stick to the imps and use decanters for the big lure-the-sucker Limited Ed bottles.

From:

lunabee34

Heeeeee.

I made myself sort of the same deal: imps and swaps only, no limited edition stuff.

I haven't smelled any of the Dracula stuff. I wonder if I'd like it.

At this point, I think I'm pretty much done buying BPAL. I will swap for them but not buy them. I've had much more success in finding things I truly love in the world of commercial perfume.

From:

kore

Yeah, the whole reason I go for BPAL is I'm allergic to something in commercial perfume -- when I walk through the perfume dept in a store, it really affects me. I know there are commercial oil based things and even other oil e-tailers that are cheaper, but I don't actually want to buy from MORE perfume sellers, so I'm just sticking with BPAL, but no bottles unless it's a scent I know from multiple uses really works for me and is special. -- I have like 2-3 bottles of TKO, a headache blend, which is a really sweet lavender and works like magic for me when I'm getting a migraine. So I felt justified in stocking up on that. That kind of thing.

I liked BPAL more when the General Catalogue was bigger and there were just three or four 'events' a year and those were small enough you could get a majority of what was offered. Now it's like in her busy season there are events and limited events and events within the events and a lot of stuff where it's 'only 200 or 500 or 100 bottles' (and then later those are on her Etsy, or ebay) and it really puts me off. sigh. But the imps are still fun.

From:

lunabee34

*nods nods*

I am very lucky not to be allergic to perfumes.

TKO is one I've wanted to try at some point. I'm not going to post a swaps list until September when I get paid again because I don't have moolah to send packages until then, but when I do, that's one that's on my wish list (along with Dorian).

I agree that the limited edition part seems out of control. Delivery of just simple imps already takes forever. I wish she would concentrate more on the catalog instead of coming up with new stuff so often.

From:

kore

TKO is really good, I haven't used Dorian in a while but I think I liked it -- White Rabbit was good, too, I think, for a kind of a tea smell. I tend to go for the fruity or juicy perfumes (which T doesn't like, heh). And not the super weird ones full of dirt or Cthullu candy or ash and smoke, etc.

I wish she would concentrate more on the catalog instead of coming up with new stuff so often.

I think a lot of people are feeling that way. Then again I saw people in the forums who were able to buy bottles of the ENTIRE LE run of Crimson Peak or Only Lovers Left Alive, and I just boggled. (And since those were super-limited, since I missed the original decant circles and didn't get bottles, I just sort of missed out. sigh. -- But then there are so many GC scents still I haven't even tried, feeling disappointed over missing very LEs is probably kind of silly. I guess it's that so-called Pokemon-get-em-all mindset.)

From:

lunabee34

Ahahhahhahaa.

I was super into the dirt smelling weird ones for a while and then it was like I woke up from a trance and went, "WTF, Lorraine. You just took a bath and put on some dirt cologne. Your robot head should be spinning."

From:

kore

HAH! ....yeah, I think the 'weirdest' I ever got was the laudanum bonbon one.

From:

lunabee34

I can't even imagine what that would smell like.

Laudanum just smells like alcohol, right? IDK

From:

kore

It was pretty much spicy/minty with a hint of chocolate. I have to admit I wanted the decant because of the name! A BONBON INJECTED WITH LAUDANUM, DUDE

From:

lunabee34

Ha!

I bet Emma would like that one. She likes their chocolate scent.

From:

kore

Forgot to say, I think I got the allergies from my mom -- she actually loved strong perfume (Giorgio, whew) but fresh paint and chemical fertilizer and pesticides and stuff like the paper mill a few towns over really set her off when I was growing up, and I'm the same way. We were both super-sensitive to smog, when my family lived in San Francisco. My dad also had all kinds of allergies and sinus issues. (Once as a kid my dad sprayed both of us with Off! -- remember Off! ? -- and we both broke out into hives in about a minute.) So BPAL is the one kind of girly/perfume thing I do.

From:

lunabee34

To my knowledge I have never had hives. Emma had them a couple of times as a kid for no reason we could ever discern and Fi had a spectacular case of them in December for no discernible reason.

From:

kore

Hives are kind of fucking scary. "WHOO my body is puffing up and turning red and my skin is getting tight and stripey what the FUCK." I had one friend whose face swelled up to three times its regular size after eating, of all things, Italian food. IIRC she later figured out there was something she was allergic to in the pasta sauce.

From:

lunabee34

Emma's just looked like somebody had slapped her, these raised red welts on her legs and torso.

Fiona's hands and feet swelled up, her eyes were swelling shut. It was horrible.

We went back and forth with the pediatrician about whether to take her to the ER; she was ultimately fine but it took them almost two weeks to fully disappear.

From:

wendelah1

I've noticed that many of the scents smell pretty much the same: the citrusy white musk ones are almost interchangeable, the woody green ones are really similar and etc. I don't think it's that the same scents are being relabeled but I do think BPAL has few scents that really are unique and standalone. More like a handful of scent families.

I thought it was just me. I got sent around 30 BPAL imps and from the dozen or so I sampled, they all smelled the same: heavily musky and woodsy and just not like anything I'd ever wear. Gave me a headache after a few sniffs, too.

From:

lunabee34

No. A lot of them truly do smell the same.

I almost never get a headache, even from perfume I don't like, but sometimes strong white florals make me feel nauseated.

From:

kore

The patchouli note she uses is like an INSTA-migraine trigger for me, I don't even know what it is, so that knocks out a lot of the catalogue for me right there. Sometimes the white florals or sharper scents give me a headache too, but man, her patchouli note is killer.

From:

lunabee34

*nods nods*

She uses two different kinds of frankincense and one of them smells awesome and the other one smells like gasoline. Straight up gasoline. *shudders*

From:

kore

It's so weird! I really liked I think an aged imp of Midnight Mass, and then got a bottle years later and it smelled SO DIFFERENT. WTF. I can understand some aging, but a totally different smell?

From:

lunabee34

Well, I think also (and this is from reading Luca Turin's perfume book) that natural ingredients can vary in presentation over time, so that might be it.