more BPAL tests
Jul. 25th, 2023 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitI'm back! I had to be away for a bit because my laptop's trackpad conked out. This laptop is absolutely not worth repairing, so I tried to switch to a mouse but the wireless mouse I already own didn't work. And it's surprisingly hard to find a wired mouse these days. In the end I had to order one from you-know-where.
Anyway, have some perfume reviews. This is the final batch of tests from the BPAL samples I ordered a few months ago. I tested everything on paper as well as on my skin, but for a lot of these it didn't make much difference so I don't always discuss it.
Plunder, Lightning, Azathoth, the Apothecary, The Antikythera Mechanism, Dracul, Miskatonic University, Calico Jack, Czernobog, Mary Read, Voodoo, Golden Priapus, Uruk, Snake Oil, Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo, and Defututa under the cut.
Plunder
BPAL notes: Tea leaf, cassia, cinnamon bark, clove, allspice, sandalwood, tobacco, peppercorn, nutmeg.
Tested on paper it's boozy and oddly bready/yeasty, with the pepper gradually getting more prominent, then the whole thing turns to pure tea after a few hours.
On me: fruitcake, initially, with an intense raisiny note as well as the boozy yeastiness already mentioned. Within half an hour the tea mostly disappears and it's very, very spicy; the spices actually irritate my skin slightly. And then it becomes quite perfumey, to the point where I washed it off within about three hours. This is one I used to like a lot, so I'm disappointed. It might benefit from aging, though.
Lightning
BPAL notes: "The electric tang of ozone, marine notes, and a drop of sharp rain."
Ordering this was the triumph of hope over experience. I keep hoping for an "ocean" fragrance that's salty and sharp and tangy and cool, but what I get, most of the time, is damp tropical flowers and greenery. There's a bit of sharp ozone that I'd like better in another context, but for me this is mostly shower gel plus a whiff of laundered linen. And then it fades to nothing, which was kind of a relief. (I know BPAL can do oceanic in a way I like, because of Jolly Roger and Mary Read But I keep wanting the Holy Grail of ocean perfumes and I haven't found it yet.)
Azathoth
BPAL notes: Tangerine, saffron, vetiver, black amber, cedarwood.
It was quite powdery when tested on paper, but on me it starts with a full, rounded saffron that I like a lot, as well as a tangerine that lasts a relatively long time (for me--about half an hour maybe?). It soon reaches a really lovely balance, with the cedar and an edge of bitterness from the saffron most prominent, and the vetiver and a not-too-sweet amber more backgrounded. It's more complex than I expect from a BPAL; it's interesting rather than just nice. Alas, it fades sooner than I would like, but this is a keeper for me.
The Apothecary
BPAL notes: Tea leaf with three mosses, green grass, herbal notes, ginger, and fig.
Tested on paper this is light, summery, and not too sweet. But my skin is weird, and on me it's mostly a fancy cake shop for the first hour. Then a kind of muskiness and perfumeyness take over (the mosses, I guess?). I was hoping for those grass and herbal notes and never really got them.
The Antikythera Mechanism
BPAL notes: Teakwood, oak, black vanilla, tobacco.
Tested on paper: the inside of a cigar box, with a quite astringent tobacco that clashes with the caramelized vanilla.
On me: at first, lemon furniture polish, inexplicably, though that doesn't last too long. The tobacco is less astringent, but doesn't really work with the vanilla until about an hour in, when the tobacco note turns more like pipe tobacco and less like cigars. Then, at about 45 minutes, it gets really interesting for a while: the sweetness drops out and a saltiness comes up, as well as a smokiness that seems to be that black caramel-ish vanilla taken to its extreme. I love this phase, but then it fades down to the standard nice vanilla-amber BPAL thing. I feel like if you're going to name your perfume after something as remarkable as the antikythera mechanism, it should be weirder than this.
Dracul
BPAL notes: Black musk, tobacco, fir, balsam of peru, cumin, bitter clove, crushed mint, and orange blossom.
Heavy. Even the orange blossom, which dominates at first along with tobacco, isn't light. It's almost incense-y, but brightened by the pine. I never really get mint, but after about an hour the incense becomes more like a rich pipe tobacco, plus scorched clove, a hint of pine and orange, a bittersweet tang like blackstrap molasses, and a slightly sweaty note from the cumin (which doesn't, mercifully, smell like urine to me). Somehow that adds up to be highly carnal, in a languid post-sex kind of way, without anything but the cumin smelling directly bodily at all. Dracul does get more perfumey after a few hours, but before that I love it a lot. This is a rare instance of a BPAL I used to be a bit meh about but like a lot more now.
Miskatonic University
BPAL notes: "Irish coffee, dusty tomes and polished oakwood halls."
Stale gas station hazelnut latte, with a distinctly fake-smelling hazelnut. There's a whiskey note when I test it on paper, but not on my skin. Eventually it becomes more like a stale gas station vanilla latte, but at no stage is it enjoyable.
Calico Jack
BPAL notes: "sea air, driftwood, waterlogged kelp, and the memory of plundered spices sprayed over worn leathers, rough musk, and the salty wooden floorboards of the Revenge."
The curse of the aquatic notes returns. I don't get the beautiful sea salt I love in Jolly Roger and Mary Read, I get decaying flowers. There is a salt note, but it's different than the one I like, and it conjures some kind of "ocean mist" shower gel rather than the sea. It does get better with time, first with a pepperiness that covers the flowers and then mellowing down to something more like a muted Jolly Roger, but it doesn't do anything I don't like better in other scents. (Also, I don't think any of Rackham's ships was called the Revenge. *grumble grumble*)
Czernobog
BPAL notes: Three musks, dark myrrh, vetiver and mullein.
Unexpectedly weird at first, but not in a way I really like. Mostly it's very sweet--I tend to find BPAL's musks sweet, this myrrh seems to be a particularly sweet one as well, and while I'm not familiar with mullein, google says it also tends to be very sweet. But then there's a very sharp note, almost disinfectant-like, which I'm inclined to blame on the mullein too. (Apparently, while sweet, it's also akin to eucalyptus or tea tree oil.) The sharpness fades within an hour or so and then it's mostly sweet myrrh and vetiver. Not a bad combo but nothing special.
Mary Read
BPAL notes: Salt air, ocean mist, aged patchouli, watered-down rum, leather-tinged musk, and a spray of gunpowder.
This is the scent that made me go from "patchouli is gross" to "patchouli is extremely confusing but sometimes I like it." The patchouli here doesn't have that dank dirtiness I associate with it; it's dark and sophisticated, and just earthy enough to have a bit of oomph. There's a lot of sweetness in the rest of the scent, with sweet herbaceous sarsparilla and whatever "ocean mist" entails, and that probably helps to keep the earthiness from becoming too much. Plus it has the salt note that I like in Jolly Roger. If I wasn't so used to loathing patchouli I might not find Mary Read quite so delightful, but there you go. It makes me want to seek out aged patchouli, in particular, in other scents.
Voodoo
BPAL notes: Myrrh, patchouli, vetiver, lime, vanilla, pine, almond, clove.
Very much a hot mess at first, mixing highly gourmand notes (the almond and vanilla made me think of fortune cookies) with more perfumey ones like lime and vetiver. Then the clove comes roaring in, and for several hours it smells like Christmas potpourri. Eventually it becomes better balanced, dominated by patchouli and vetiver, with a hint of clove and a more discreet almond. But it's not worth waiting through the rest.
Golden Priapus
BPAL notes: Vanilla, amber, juniper, rosewood, white pine.
This is another old favorite--I had a bottle of it at one point--that isn't like what I remember. It was always sweet, but my current sample also has a weird, sickly citrus note that turns plasticky. There's not enough pine and it's not sharp enough. Just kind of blandly odd.
Uruk
BPAL notes: Bitter almond, night blooming jasmine, saffron, cinnamon leaf, red patchouli, river lilies, bergamot, fig leaf, "the sacred incense of Inanna"
This was a freebie, not something I ordered. Lots of almond, lots of jasmine: it's tea in a bakery, to the point where I was hoping the patchouli would make itself felt more strongly, but it didn't.
Snake Oil
BPAL notes: Vintage patchouli, aged vanilla absolute, musk, dark spices.
Another freebie--in fact BPAL sent me three vials of it. I was pretty disappointed about that until I had my patchouli epiphany, and then I began to hope. Unfortunately, Snake Oil still doesn't work for me, but not because of the patchouli. I found the vanilla oddly powdery, not to mention unnecessary when I was more interested in the mystery wood note I got at first. I don't know what it was, but purely on free association it made me think of maple wood that's been cured and is ready to be turned into furniture. It took a good while for the patchouli to even be recognizable as patchouli, and by then the overall effect was sort of patchouli-scented baby powder and root beer. Snake Oil's an incoherent mishmash, at least on me, and I don't get why it's so popular. (I get the sense, from looking at reviews, that Snake Oil is frequently reformulated, possibly depending on what quality of patchouli is available. No doubt some versions are better than others.)
Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo
BPAL notes: none listed
Another freebie. To me it smells of almond, coconut, and maybe some musk. Extremely gourmand--basically it's a coconut almond cake.
Defututa
BPAL notes: Olive blossom, honey, smoky vanilla, cinnamon, jasmine, sandalwood, and champaca flower.
Another freebie. Initially it's quite dark for something so floral, with a sharp something (it smelled like lime to me, though that's not listed) and not too much sweetness considering it's got both vanilla and honey. But within half an hour it turned into JASMINE. I like jasmine, but this is a lot. Apparently champaca is kind of jasmine-esque, so it's like a double dose.
And that's it. I still feel slightly disgruntled about the freebies. I realize I shouldn't complain about getting free stuff, but . . . usually when a perfumer sends you freebies, they try to match the kinds of things you ordered. BPAL pretty clearly doesn't do that. It's annoying to me as a consumer, and not great for them as a business since they miss the opportunity to promote scents I might actually like and buy.
I probably won't be buying any more BPAL soon. (Except, possibly, for some Jolly Roger, as I seem somehow to have lost my imp of one of the few BPALs I really like.) However, I do have a bunch of mostly-BPAL samples that someone--I don't know if they're okay with being named--send to me from their unwanted stash. So there are more reviews to come. (I've already tried a few of them, and there's at least one I really like.)
The next time I actually buy, though, I'm going back to more . . . I don't know what adjective to use, because I don't mean mainstream, I just mean "not BPAL" . . . perfumes. My birthday's coming up so I might get some samples then. Unless the weather continues stinking hot, in which case I should probably wait so my purchases don't get boiled in transit.
At the moment I have three main lines of interest:
I should probably pick one and just order that kind of thing, but I am a dilettante at heart and I like variety. On the other hand, it would make sense to order dark and/or patchouli scents for fall/winter, and save the bright green herbal ones until spring.
I need to go back through all the wonderful recommendations people gave me on earlier posts and compile them.
Anyway, have some perfume reviews. This is the final batch of tests from the BPAL samples I ordered a few months ago. I tested everything on paper as well as on my skin, but for a lot of these it didn't make much difference so I don't always discuss it.
Plunder, Lightning, Azathoth, the Apothecary, The Antikythera Mechanism, Dracul, Miskatonic University, Calico Jack, Czernobog, Mary Read, Voodoo, Golden Priapus, Uruk, Snake Oil, Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo, and Defututa under the cut.
Plunder
BPAL notes: Tea leaf, cassia, cinnamon bark, clove, allspice, sandalwood, tobacco, peppercorn, nutmeg.
Tested on paper it's boozy and oddly bready/yeasty, with the pepper gradually getting more prominent, then the whole thing turns to pure tea after a few hours.
On me: fruitcake, initially, with an intense raisiny note as well as the boozy yeastiness already mentioned. Within half an hour the tea mostly disappears and it's very, very spicy; the spices actually irritate my skin slightly. And then it becomes quite perfumey, to the point where I washed it off within about three hours. This is one I used to like a lot, so I'm disappointed. It might benefit from aging, though.
Lightning
BPAL notes: "The electric tang of ozone, marine notes, and a drop of sharp rain."
Ordering this was the triumph of hope over experience. I keep hoping for an "ocean" fragrance that's salty and sharp and tangy and cool, but what I get, most of the time, is damp tropical flowers and greenery. There's a bit of sharp ozone that I'd like better in another context, but for me this is mostly shower gel plus a whiff of laundered linen. And then it fades to nothing, which was kind of a relief. (I know BPAL can do oceanic in a way I like, because of Jolly Roger and Mary Read But I keep wanting the Holy Grail of ocean perfumes and I haven't found it yet.)
Azathoth
BPAL notes: Tangerine, saffron, vetiver, black amber, cedarwood.
It was quite powdery when tested on paper, but on me it starts with a full, rounded saffron that I like a lot, as well as a tangerine that lasts a relatively long time (for me--about half an hour maybe?). It soon reaches a really lovely balance, with the cedar and an edge of bitterness from the saffron most prominent, and the vetiver and a not-too-sweet amber more backgrounded. It's more complex than I expect from a BPAL; it's interesting rather than just nice. Alas, it fades sooner than I would like, but this is a keeper for me.
The Apothecary
BPAL notes: Tea leaf with three mosses, green grass, herbal notes, ginger, and fig.
Tested on paper this is light, summery, and not too sweet. But my skin is weird, and on me it's mostly a fancy cake shop for the first hour. Then a kind of muskiness and perfumeyness take over (the mosses, I guess?). I was hoping for those grass and herbal notes and never really got them.
The Antikythera Mechanism
BPAL notes: Teakwood, oak, black vanilla, tobacco.
Tested on paper: the inside of a cigar box, with a quite astringent tobacco that clashes with the caramelized vanilla.
On me: at first, lemon furniture polish, inexplicably, though that doesn't last too long. The tobacco is less astringent, but doesn't really work with the vanilla until about an hour in, when the tobacco note turns more like pipe tobacco and less like cigars. Then, at about 45 minutes, it gets really interesting for a while: the sweetness drops out and a saltiness comes up, as well as a smokiness that seems to be that black caramel-ish vanilla taken to its extreme. I love this phase, but then it fades down to the standard nice vanilla-amber BPAL thing. I feel like if you're going to name your perfume after something as remarkable as the antikythera mechanism, it should be weirder than this.
Dracul
BPAL notes: Black musk, tobacco, fir, balsam of peru, cumin, bitter clove, crushed mint, and orange blossom.
Heavy. Even the orange blossom, which dominates at first along with tobacco, isn't light. It's almost incense-y, but brightened by the pine. I never really get mint, but after about an hour the incense becomes more like a rich pipe tobacco, plus scorched clove, a hint of pine and orange, a bittersweet tang like blackstrap molasses, and a slightly sweaty note from the cumin (which doesn't, mercifully, smell like urine to me). Somehow that adds up to be highly carnal, in a languid post-sex kind of way, without anything but the cumin smelling directly bodily at all. Dracul does get more perfumey after a few hours, but before that I love it a lot. This is a rare instance of a BPAL I used to be a bit meh about but like a lot more now.
Miskatonic University
BPAL notes: "Irish coffee, dusty tomes and polished oakwood halls."
Stale gas station hazelnut latte, with a distinctly fake-smelling hazelnut. There's a whiskey note when I test it on paper, but not on my skin. Eventually it becomes more like a stale gas station vanilla latte, but at no stage is it enjoyable.
Calico Jack
BPAL notes: "sea air, driftwood, waterlogged kelp, and the memory of plundered spices sprayed over worn leathers, rough musk, and the salty wooden floorboards of the Revenge."
The curse of the aquatic notes returns. I don't get the beautiful sea salt I love in Jolly Roger and Mary Read, I get decaying flowers. There is a salt note, but it's different than the one I like, and it conjures some kind of "ocean mist" shower gel rather than the sea. It does get better with time, first with a pepperiness that covers the flowers and then mellowing down to something more like a muted Jolly Roger, but it doesn't do anything I don't like better in other scents. (Also, I don't think any of Rackham's ships was called the Revenge. *grumble grumble*)
Czernobog
BPAL notes: Three musks, dark myrrh, vetiver and mullein.
Unexpectedly weird at first, but not in a way I really like. Mostly it's very sweet--I tend to find BPAL's musks sweet, this myrrh seems to be a particularly sweet one as well, and while I'm not familiar with mullein, google says it also tends to be very sweet. But then there's a very sharp note, almost disinfectant-like, which I'm inclined to blame on the mullein too. (Apparently, while sweet, it's also akin to eucalyptus or tea tree oil.) The sharpness fades within an hour or so and then it's mostly sweet myrrh and vetiver. Not a bad combo but nothing special.
Mary Read
BPAL notes: Salt air, ocean mist, aged patchouli, watered-down rum, leather-tinged musk, and a spray of gunpowder.
This is the scent that made me go from "patchouli is gross" to "patchouli is extremely confusing but sometimes I like it." The patchouli here doesn't have that dank dirtiness I associate with it; it's dark and sophisticated, and just earthy enough to have a bit of oomph. There's a lot of sweetness in the rest of the scent, with sweet herbaceous sarsparilla and whatever "ocean mist" entails, and that probably helps to keep the earthiness from becoming too much. Plus it has the salt note that I like in Jolly Roger. If I wasn't so used to loathing patchouli I might not find Mary Read quite so delightful, but there you go. It makes me want to seek out aged patchouli, in particular, in other scents.
Voodoo
BPAL notes: Myrrh, patchouli, vetiver, lime, vanilla, pine, almond, clove.
Very much a hot mess at first, mixing highly gourmand notes (the almond and vanilla made me think of fortune cookies) with more perfumey ones like lime and vetiver. Then the clove comes roaring in, and for several hours it smells like Christmas potpourri. Eventually it becomes better balanced, dominated by patchouli and vetiver, with a hint of clove and a more discreet almond. But it's not worth waiting through the rest.
Golden Priapus
BPAL notes: Vanilla, amber, juniper, rosewood, white pine.
This is another old favorite--I had a bottle of it at one point--that isn't like what I remember. It was always sweet, but my current sample also has a weird, sickly citrus note that turns plasticky. There's not enough pine and it's not sharp enough. Just kind of blandly odd.
Uruk
BPAL notes: Bitter almond, night blooming jasmine, saffron, cinnamon leaf, red patchouli, river lilies, bergamot, fig leaf, "the sacred incense of Inanna"
This was a freebie, not something I ordered. Lots of almond, lots of jasmine: it's tea in a bakery, to the point where I was hoping the patchouli would make itself felt more strongly, but it didn't.
Snake Oil
BPAL notes: Vintage patchouli, aged vanilla absolute, musk, dark spices.
Another freebie--in fact BPAL sent me three vials of it. I was pretty disappointed about that until I had my patchouli epiphany, and then I began to hope. Unfortunately, Snake Oil still doesn't work for me, but not because of the patchouli. I found the vanilla oddly powdery, not to mention unnecessary when I was more interested in the mystery wood note I got at first. I don't know what it was, but purely on free association it made me think of maple wood that's been cured and is ready to be turned into furniture. It took a good while for the patchouli to even be recognizable as patchouli, and by then the overall effect was sort of patchouli-scented baby powder and root beer. Snake Oil's an incoherent mishmash, at least on me, and I don't get why it's so popular. (I get the sense, from looking at reviews, that Snake Oil is frequently reformulated, possibly depending on what quality of patchouli is available. No doubt some versions are better than others.)
Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo
BPAL notes: none listed
Another freebie. To me it smells of almond, coconut, and maybe some musk. Extremely gourmand--basically it's a coconut almond cake.
Defututa
BPAL notes: Olive blossom, honey, smoky vanilla, cinnamon, jasmine, sandalwood, and champaca flower.
Another freebie. Initially it's quite dark for something so floral, with a sharp something (it smelled like lime to me, though that's not listed) and not too much sweetness considering it's got both vanilla and honey. But within half an hour it turned into JASMINE. I like jasmine, but this is a lot. Apparently champaca is kind of jasmine-esque, so it's like a double dose.
And that's it. I still feel slightly disgruntled about the freebies. I realize I shouldn't complain about getting free stuff, but . . . usually when a perfumer sends you freebies, they try to match the kinds of things you ordered. BPAL pretty clearly doesn't do that. It's annoying to me as a consumer, and not great for them as a business since they miss the opportunity to promote scents I might actually like and buy.
I probably won't be buying any more BPAL soon. (Except, possibly, for some Jolly Roger, as I seem somehow to have lost my imp of one of the few BPALs I really like.) However, I do have a bunch of mostly-BPAL samples that someone--I don't know if they're okay with being named--send to me from their unwanted stash. So there are more reviews to come. (I've already tried a few of them, and there's at least one I really like.)
The next time I actually buy, though, I'm going back to more . . . I don't know what adjective to use, because I don't mean mainstream, I just mean "not BPAL" . . . perfumes. My birthday's coming up so I might get some samples then. Unless the weather continues stinking hot, in which case I should probably wait so my purchases don't get boiled in transit.
At the moment I have three main lines of interest:
1) Bright, herbal, green, medicinal, bitter
2) Dark, smoky, traditionally masculine
3) Patchouli specifically, because I want to figure out how I feel about it.
I should probably pick one and just order that kind of thing, but I am a dilettante at heart and I like variety. On the other hand, it would make sense to order dark and/or patchouli scents for fall/winter, and save the bright green herbal ones until spring.
I need to go back through all the wonderful recommendations people gave me on earlier posts and compile them.
