Head Cold

No BPAL for me while I work my way through the tissues. I did break down the other day and try Serpent's Kiss. There was a wonderful, almost brittle note that I loved. However after a rather vigorous nose blowing session a faint whiff of the hated BPAL cake mix spice came to me. Possibly both these impressions are dead wrong. I haven't got much Serpent's Kiss in the vial so I'm waiting until all is crystal clear to really test it. SK is one of the sticky oils which I kind of enjoy, impractical though it is to have your wrist smeared in honey.

Today I'm wearing a spot of Trouble and very lovely it is.

Photo is Charlotte Church's album Tissues and Issues

BPAL Project: Holiday Moon

~Yankee Candle Revenge~

Oh how I have gloated over my Yankee Candle virginity when it comes to BPAL. Happily spared of this inescapable association I am free to enjoy, or not, oils that to others shriek candle spice. Oils can have their assignations in my brain with other perfumey institutions but the Yankee Candles do not even get a wave in. It has been nyah nyah to Yankee Candles.

Bamboo, oudh, green and white tea.. lovely, yes? I am sure it is but I am unable to process any of this as the demon of TeaTree oil stains the life and delicacy out of them all. I am sure many an antipodean would recoil in the same way having soaped and antisepticized and souveniered their way through countless TeaTree products in their life. TeaTree you pervasive predator be gone from my olfactory pathways!!

"Bamboo pulp and oude with green and white tea."

Photo is of the beautiful plant TeaTree growing along the shore.

BPAL Project: Stardust

Stardust!

Champagne pale and effervescent, makes you smile over your white musk cocktail. This scent is pretty and glittery and makes me think of Rive Gauche and her slim blue-eyeshadowed friends. Yes it does smell 70's as far as fragrance composition goes and it's nice to revisit girly and glam. Stardust isn't worried about remaining true to any floral purities and is happily its own synthetic party. It's this love of the blend rather than the integrity of notes that makes it such a flashback scent (particularly if you've been smelling nothing but BPAL's for some time).

Stardust has great lasting power and unlike most BPAL's is linear from first application until your sleeves the next day. The white sandlewood is a gorgeous base; otherwise the notes individual are lost in the moment. And that's rather refreshingly creative.

"And I don’t need no superheroes,
I don’t care for gods with wings,
I hear teardrops on the pavement when Lady Stardust sings….
oh Lady stardust sing..lady stardust sing."

Lady Stardust - Lisa Miskovsky

BPAL's Own Stardust Novel:

"When the holidays roll around, not everyone has mistletoe, caroling and cookies on their minds. This scent is a paean to celebrating hard: nights covered in glitter and dusted with cocaine, flutes of Cristal clutched in shaky hands, leather and lace, the Spiders From Mars in the background, and twisting, sweaty limbs entangled in dark corners. Hairspray and cigarette smoke is the incense in this temple to decadence, strobe and mirrors replace the devotional candles, and Bolan sings the hymns. This scent is for everyone that has every drifted off into Quaalude-induced reverie to the beat of a tribal 4-on-the-floor: the sound of Mott the Hoople, Sweet, Slade or the Dolls. This scent reflects the futurism, self-indulgence and excess of the Glitter 70's: champagne, hyacinth, tuberose, ylang ylang and flashing white musk with jonquil, tobacco flower, white sandalwood and a pale poppy."

BPAL Project: Kuang Shi

Enchanting and delicate the mandarine tingles in the background of this oil's gentle opening. The mango develops well, adding depth and roundness and more colour than fruit to the sandlewood which is tinged with spice. You wouldn't call this a fruity scent, rather it settles into a canvas of desirable orange. It makes me think of teak furniture and Bali sunsets. A secret scent, you will carry it with you like a fantasy jaunt you know you will take some day.

I could not by any imagination gymnastics connect this charming scent with zombies.

"Bust out the dzang dzi! This scent honors the zombies of Chinese lore. Mandarin orange, white musk, mango, and white sandalwood."

BPAL Project: Gaueko

Fir trees, cinnamon and perfumey goodness. Nice in a pot-pourri kind of way, this smells like a Christmas wreath. Similar to other scents without having any stand out qualities, this would a be a good oil to go caroling by. I'm fond of all BPAL's resinous forest oils, this one is almost the starter base. Festive rather than dark.

"Blackened sandalwood and misty lavender, with curling wisps of smoky tobacco, nag champa, and labdanum."

BPAL Project: Siren

"Bewitching, tantalizing and dangerously seductive. A thrilling, exotic blend -- deceptively sweet, but spiked with malice. White ginger, jasmine, and a touch of vanilla and apricot."

At it's best Siren has that intense crushed skins taste of apricot preserves done well. I can detect no ginger but there is an aromatic jasmine gently playing on the apricot. Unfortunately this is but a brief blooming of yumminess and it soon settles into a stale, vaguely fruity mishmash. The siren call of ants to the remains of afternoon tea perhaps.

BPAL Project: Jailbait

Pink Bubblegum with stale undertones. Chewed too long it's gone old and cold and back to that rubber base. The drydown is more cool and knowing, with similar notes to Pink Sugar.

Not much of a crisis here unless you want to titter over the name.

"Innocence defiled. Sticky pink bubblegum and the thick, sweet scent of orange and cherry lollipops smeared over a breath of heady womanly perfume."