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."

BPAL Project: Come to Me

When dipping into my imp supply I like to vary how I go about testing them. Sometimes I look up a few oils to avoid testing too many in the same vein in a row. Often I am feeling adverse to a certain kind of scent, gourmand or lavendar or any manner of things and I want to avoid sampling something I'm distinctly not in the mood for. However I do love to just dip in and pick one out based on the name or colour and that's what I did with Come to Me. I assumed there would be some seductive quality to it, perhaps similar to Suspiro. Come to Me would wear a beautiful white dress that revealed rather more than you expected when the sun shone on it.

I did get the white dress right, but there is no come hithering here. This is the scent of CLEAN and showered, freshly laundered and dried in the sun and freshest of air. 'Fresh' and 'cleanly laundered' are usually code for dryer sheets--a comfort scent for some but chemicals to me. However this very light scent captures the hot sun on clean sheets blowing in the wind. Yes the detergent element is still there; how else did the sheets get clean? But it is light and clearly some enjoy the fresh laundry experience slathered on their arms.

I've never explored the clean sheets area of fragrance so I can't compare this to any other offerings in that realm. I do enjoy the hot sun on cotton waftings but over time I know the detergent element would irritate.

BPAL Project: Snake Oil Revisited

My first BPAL review was of Snake Oil, the lab's most popular scent. I was very unimpressed. I did note though that I had at least two samples of Snake Oil and that there was much discussion in BPAL land about the wondrous ageing qualities of this oil. It seemed prudent to revisit, though I don't know the age of either sample.

My 5ml bottle is an entirely different creature from the imp I took my original sample from. Vanilla cream with none of that odious cake mix spice, the drydown has some solemn woods to it which beautifully compliment the still dominant vanilla. Twelve hours later the scent remains. Am I sniffing an aged bottle of Snake Oil or is this the fresh one and the imp the old soul? I guess I will have to order a new one to find out.




Painting by Vicki McDonald Leppek, Beginning & End, Minoan Snake Goddess.

BPAL Project: Mata Hari

"Five roses with soft jasmine, warmed by vanilla, fig, tonka bean and mahogany, spiced with a drop of coffee bean."

*SOBS*

Look at these beautiful, beautiful notes! Oh My Goodness and other creamy things, how to seduce an oriental lover with near edible florals. Sigh.. if only it were true. Let me repeat that:

IF ONLY IT WERE TRUE.

This begins with horribly strong jasmine with a sweet undertone. I was sure the sweetness would soon dominate and the jasmine recede. The tonka was ever so softly discernible, for a very short time. Soon it was all nose burning jasmine and rose in the soapiest possible way. I waited for the coffee, I hoped for the coffee! All those warm dark sweet thangs well.. maybe they sank to the bottom of the vile.. oh, I mean vial.

The drydown has a slight staleness to it which might be the coffee (I was still hopeful).

Painting by Stephen Brayfield whose Fine Art section is lovely.

A Favorite Fragrance Ad: Egoiste Platinum Chanel

A Fabulous Ad!

Surprising, almost hilarious, evocative. I am sure this fellow read The Magus far too many times in high school, with much underlining.

"Our accepting what we are must always inhibit our being what we ought to be."
John Fowles

BPAL Project: Numb

Anaesthetic. I feel it should be applied with a swab, prior to a 'procedure'. Designed to wear in sweltering heat it does have a cooling effect, but so does an alcohol bath. If you find antiseptic soothing this may agree with you; but don't forget it only exists because you began with sepsis. I would wear Numb to a crummy hotel lobby hosting a UFO convention, dousing myself liberally at regular intervals in the ladies room. This would add authenticity to any tale I had to sell.

It is exactly the sort of odd smell you notice on someone that, while not offensive, causes you to minimize the conversation and keep your distance. Whatever they were doing to acquire this smell you do NOT want to know about it. You can't escape the notion that it involved unpleasant fluids.

Photo from Alien 3 "Alien 3 isn't a cheery film but then the experience of the last 15 years of Aids hasn't been either"

"Revel in the gelid polar frostiness that is Numb, and forget about the heat for a moment"

BPAL Project: Verchernyaya

A little whiskey..

A little tobaccy..

A little patchouli..

A little post-coital sweetness.. or perhaps a little poppy seed paste.

This is a comfort scent that dries down to furs and lingering stories. I like it very very much. The poppy is that of poppy seed pastries with their sweet nutty quality rather than anything floral. Bury your face in a warm red fur, your ears burning in the cold and breath in deeply. Oh the leather settees in smoking rooms that fur has draped itself over.. the cedar chests at the foot of beds it has been discarded upon. How beautiful to think of fur gathering moments as the years go by and warming them for those who later seek them out.



"Vechernyaya: The Evening Star
Three white musks with poppy and patchouli."

YSL Cinema

Cinema, released by YSL in 2004 is often poorly reviewed on fragrance forums. "Bland" "Banal" "Uninspired" "Boring floral".. these tags make me sad. Cinema is a beauiful amberry floral with curl of vanilla weaving gently into its base. Often it gives me the impression of warm hay, that delicately perfumed scent that has nothing to do with flowers and makes you want to breath in deep. But most compellingly Cinema smells like strong, fragrant, milky tea.. it is a comfort scent that warms a cold autumn day and sparkles in the summer.

Some 20 years ago I was happily drinking tea with milk, no sugar. Though I had drunk it black as a child a year spent in London soon cured me of that as you practically needed a bullhorn to make the cafes serve it to you that way. I had quickly acclimatized and continued on with my white habits for some years. Then one day in the throes of reading my way through all of Dostoevsky the words "samovar" "tea" "glass" "sugar" lit up in my mind. Suddenly I had to have some tea, black and in a glass with a teaspoon of sugar. I had no silver tea holder, but that did not matter. I went on a long jag of tea in a glass with 1 and when I got past that I ended up firmly a black tea drinker, no sugar, in any manner of cup. My black tea days continued on for 2 decades.

And then came Cinema. For all the world it smells to me, most divinely, of strong sweet and fragrant milky tea. Oh it is very enjoyable, a comforting and filling aroma in the chill of winter. I was happily lavishing it upon myself when once again I was gripped with a desire teaward and I found myself drinking cup upon cup of strong white tea, sweetened. Now not only have I preferred my tea black for these many years but I've considered white tea to be somewhat revolting. This notion is now quite dead! I am happily calcium enriched and probably consuming several hundred more calories a day.

I also fell in love with the bottle. Unfortunately in my search for bargainfulness I ended up with the 2005 Christmas Gold Collector edition which looks like some tacky glam bag. I'm making a little promise to myself that when the time comes to restock I will go for the original.

Top note : Clementine, Almond Blossom, Cyclamen
Middle note : Amaryllis, Sambac Jasmine, Peony
Base note : Amber, White Musks, French Vanilla, Benzoin

BPAL Project: Blood Kiss

Very vanilla and honey in the nicest possible way. A sweet and delicate cake perched on a saucer to be had with tea. Unfortunately this contains a dusting of the generic BPAL spice that is horribly tiresome. At first I thought the amount quite forgivable but the drydown is mired in BPAL spice mix. If this doesn't bother you and you want a gentle sweet cake of a scent it does succeed at that, at least for a time. No doubt if this was promoted as a lustier scent the delicacy would be even more stifled by BPAL spice.

"Lush, creamy vanilla and the honey of the sweetest kiss smeared with the vital throb of husky clove, swollen red cherries, but darkened with the vampiric sensuality of vetiver, soporific poppy and blood red wine, and a skin-light pulse of feral musk."

Wan Fung Art Gallery

The Wan Fung Art Gallery is an online exhibition of contemporary Chinese artists. The gallery itself is located in Hong Kong with branches in three Chinese cities. There are many striking works here to explore; I was thrilled to discover this site of treasures!





This print is by Dai Bin.

BPAL Project: Bliss

This is pure milk chocolate, with a dusting of cocoa powder in the drydown. No florals or patchouli to grownup-fy it and not sickly sweet but just right. If milk chocolate is what you want then this is it. Not much staying power but chocolate is usually eaten pretty quickly.



"A shot of pure, self-indulgent euphoria! A scent that is very, very wicked in its own way: the serotonin-slathered scent of pure milk chocolate."

Taking Vetiver by Strategy: Brian Eno on Perfume

A wonderful article by Brian Eno on his fascination with scent, perfume and the difficulty in finding objective language for olfactory truths. Thanks to POL for bringing this to my notice, what a treasure!

"You don't have to dabble for very long to begin to realize that the world of smell has no reliable maps, no single language, no comprehensible metaphorical structure within which we might comprehend it and navigate our way around it."

BPAL Project: DREAM FORMULA IV, Nanshe

Nanshe is part of BPAL's Somnium collection, created to aid and abet sleep and dreams. Nanshe "opens up psychic sensitivity during sleep and aids in the understanding and correct interpretation of portents and symbols."

Down the loooooong dark tunnel of sleep into an interior greenly lit this draught if over applied would make a spiffy smelling salt. I suppose the idea is to wake within, after you have fallen into slumber.

Nanshe is fresh spruce, verbena and lemon. There are moments of ozonic after-rain scent which are quite fascinating but sadly the lemon soon dominates. The spruce opening is very bright eyed and the drydown settles quickly into verbena. Something nicer to wake to than burnt feathers.

Photo of the interior of the Spruce Goose.

Boucheron Trouble

Top Note: Citron, Digitalis

Middle Note: Jasmine

Base Note: Precious wood, Vanilla,
Amber, Blue Cedar

Glancing through this blog I see a small theme unfolding; I have always considered "dry" to be a highly desirable attribute of perfume. I may enjoy my fragrances that embrace the word "lush" from time to time but my long term respect is lavished upon dryness. In revealing itself to be a non-sweet, dry vanilla Boucheron's Trouble has me kneeling at its feet.

My favorite posession is an antique Chinese altar table from the late 1800's. It is beautifully carved with the red lacquer darkened over time. If my table had a scent that scent would be Boucheron's Trouble. The wisdom of ages past distilled into one perfect red bottle, Trouble is a portal to universal truths. If Trouble were an oil it would be used to anoint the postulant seeker, wrapped in study and meditation.

Often compared to Dior's Addict I would offer this; Addict is richer but Trouble is wiser. Richness will make you ill after a time and needing respite but no one ever woke up with a hangover from too much wisdom.

I do wonder at the note listing choosing the word "digitalis" rather than "foxglove". Is there an actual difference there or is digitalis the dangerous, non-flowery choice? Digitalis make us think of poison, medication, the heart.. and foxglove reminds us of our grandmother's garden.

Trouble is in my Top 5 scents and though some on that list will vary with time Trouble shows no sign of doing so. Boucheron Trouble, I am quite besotted with you.

BPAL Project: Sophia

We begin..

Almost eye watering freshly opened lavendar soap!

We settle for a spell..

Lavendar soap with a beautiful jasmine tea accord!

We dry down..

My, that was a pretty soap. I must buy some of this for Mother.

And a very fast scent journey this is, from oh-my-goodness strong to faint memory in less time than it takes to finish one's ablutions.

"The Gnostic goddess of Wisdom. A solemn, deeply profound draught of lavender, soft musks, star jasmine, black rose, delphinium, and gentle spice."

BPAL Project: Bordello

Bordello starts off very sweet. The plum and blackcurrant are candied and enticing and soon develop into deeper and more delicious fruit. Amaretto adds a grownup nod in the background and very enjoyable it is. Once the candy fades you are left with an intoxicating liqueur, sweet but not for children. A wonderful rendition of purple fruits that puts the unending crop of fruity perfumes to shame. Yes I, a not very foodyscent much less fruity person, could just about chew off my arm! I love the way the tartness of fruit skins isn't lost but lingers in the background like an aftertaste.

This scent is remains wet and juicy thoughout its development. The drydown ages into a bosomy merlot. Unless you have been tainted by a childhood spent sucking blackcurrant pastilles all thoughts of candy are gone in the drydown.

The name is quite a misnomer and the description lost in this oil. "lusty"? Well perhaps in a very airbrushed portrait of a cathouse you might find wine and crushed fruit skins signifying "snarls of pleasure". I am more of a Mitsouko girl.

"A decadent, deep perfume, lusty and luxuriant. The scent evokes images of velvet-lined Old West cathouses, tightly laced corsets, rustling petticoats and coquettish snarls of pleasure. Bawdy plum with amaretto, burgundy wine and black currant."

BPAL Project: The Caterpillar

"you flicker
and you're beautiful
you glow inside my head
you hold me hypnotized
i'm mesmerized...

your flames
the flames that kiss me dead"


From The Caterpillar by The Cure

The Caterpillar is a song of great charm from The Cure's seventh full length album, The Top. Whimsical as peyote fueled haiku, adorable and at times gripping, The Top is a one off Cure masterpiece. Pay no attention to Robert Smith's spouted opinion about The Top, he is wrong. He is also fond of saying any thing that comes into his head during interviews.

So, what does this have to do with BPAL's The Caterpillar? Absolutely nothing. The Caterpillar is a very well blended scent, sexy and perfumey in the classical vein. With neroli and jasmine dominant this starts out as a lovely floral, reminding me of what I had hoped for in Boucheron. The vetiver adds some real vavoom to this one, heady and seductive. The Caterpillar is far closer to classical perfume than other BPAL's I've tried. The drydown becomes warmer and sweeter, leading the floral into more oriental realms. A pretty and potent old school scent that is very grown up.

"Heavy incense notes waft lazily through a mix of carnation, jasmine, bergamot, and neroli over a lush bed of dark mosses, iris blossom, deep patchouli and indolent vetiver."

BPAL Project: Wanton

A clean and watery rose
A reedy greeny smell..
The bathroom is so fresh!
A scent to perfume hell

No subtlety for those
Wantons wandering from the fold
The headache blast of aerosol gas
A harshness burns the nose

poem by A. Scrubber

"Feminine sexuality in it's rawest form. Palmarosa, red sandalwood, attar of rose, patchouli."