My BPAL experience so far
Aug. 4th, 2006 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ghost_lightI've tried 5 of my 7 imps now. I've found that smelling all of them right out of the box gave me a bad headache, but just trying them out one at a time has treated me very well. (Maybe there is hope for you too, 
sionainn)
I've also found that it takes about 2 hours for the scents to run their full course on my skin, which may mean we are in for a long party.
Speaking there of, how does Thursday look? Anyone who didn't buy want to come sniff anyway?
geolinguist
has an excellent nose and a great way of explaining scents, so his presence is required.
Anyway...
So far I have tried
Thaleia
Thaleia the Flourishing is the Muse of Comedy and Pastoral Poetry, and shares the same name as one of the Gratiæ. She is a very down-to-Earth Goddess, and has a special fondness for rural folk. She wears a crown of ivy leaves and carries the Mask of Comedy and a shepherd’s crook. The Blooming One is the Goddess of Comedians and inspires creativity in wit and the joy and release we have in laughter. A vivacious, dazzling, merry scent: honey, ylang ylang, apricot, ciste, blood orange and gardenia with earthy, warm tonka.
The first time I tried it I was swamped with strange florals. Not unpleasant, just muddled with some odd fruit notes.
When I tried it the second time,geolinguist took one whiff of the imp and said "Oh! Baby aspirin!" He was picking up citrus notes under it.
It starts nicely on my skin, then dries to about 2 hours of waxy vanilla candle smell. Once that is out of my system, it settles into a lovely warm vanilla scent with just a little spice underneath. Or at least it did this time. I will probably need to give it a couple more tries.
Bess
Inspired by the tragic, ill-fated love of Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester. This is our modernization of a 17th-century perfume blend favored by British aristocracy: rosemary, orange flower, grape spirit, five rose variants, lemon peel, and mint.
First try - no mint, some citrus, kind of a mix of floral and fruity. Luckily there were people around the office to smell me at various stages of this. Chris from the museum and Don both though it smelled nice, more fruity than floral. I thought it had an underlying aroma of baby powder, but they did not pick that it. Then it spent about 2 hours as raging, overpoweringly ick-rose.geolinguist didn't care for that stage either, but I stuck with it and the end result was a nice floral. Very subtle. One of the girls at the warehouse work call thought it was just lovely. One of the guys said it started off subtle and then just went "whooom! That's niiiiiice!"
Scarecrow
An agricultural gargoyle. Though he is the Guardian of the Crops and Keeper of the Fields, his visage is still the stuff of nightmares. The scent of a hot wind blowing through desolate, scorched, barren fields.
This was my free imp, not one I would have chosen for myself in a million years. I read the board on the BPAL site and the consensus seems to be that it is a very masculine scent. I sniffed the closed imp and just yelled "Grass!" Mark didn't get it. I tried it the other night as a joke.
geolinguist was over for dinner and Project Runway, so I put some on him and some on me just to see what the difference would be.
Wet it was all grass, all the time, but not unpleasant. It was pretty boyish, but it made me feel tough and pretty at the same time. The grass notes fades into something kind of juniper-y and stayed there for a very long time. It really didn't change on my skin. Ongeolinguist it faded to kind of a clean, soapy smell and vanished quickly. I smelled it on me all night.
I tried wearing it to work the next day. Don's only comment was "you like that kind of thing?". Chris liked it a lot. One of the girls thought it was nice and identified it as "oh, sunflowers!" (could that be the earthy undertones you were getting,geolinguist?) I felt self-conscious about smelling like a boy all day.
Desdemona
Innocent, soft and pure: sweet pea, carnation and water lily.
I tried this last night. In the imp is smells like the pleasantness Bess fades into. Surprise! That's how it stayed on my skin! It was a lovely carnation/lily scent without the odd chemical-ick. I tried it at work today. Don seemed to like it. Chris said she liked the Scarecrow better. I mentioned thinking it was a pretty boy-scent and she said she had not picked that up at all.
Swank
Simply cool, the essence of Lounge: the scent of a crisp pomegranate martini.
I am trying this one right now.
When I first put it on, I was hoping the martini notes might have a bit of the juniper-underlay. At first it smelled very fruity, then faded to something sweetly spicy then....faded.
I reapplied and I smell like a pack of Starbursts so far. I kind of like the bright, fruity notes and I am getting something kicking under it again. It seems to be leaving quickly though. And morphing into Koolaid. Mark thinks I put too much on and that is why I got overwhelming ick from Bess and Thalia. We'll see what he andgeolinguist think of this one.
sionainn) I've also found that it takes about 2 hours for the scents to run their full course on my skin, which may mean we are in for a long party.
Speaking there of, how does Thursday look? Anyone who didn't buy want to come sniff anyway?
geolinguisthas an excellent nose and a great way of explaining scents, so his presence is required.
Anyway...
So far I have tried
Thaleia
Thaleia the Flourishing is the Muse of Comedy and Pastoral Poetry, and shares the same name as one of the Gratiæ. She is a very down-to-Earth Goddess, and has a special fondness for rural folk. She wears a crown of ivy leaves and carries the Mask of Comedy and a shepherd’s crook. The Blooming One is the Goddess of Comedians and inspires creativity in wit and the joy and release we have in laughter. A vivacious, dazzling, merry scent: honey, ylang ylang, apricot, ciste, blood orange and gardenia with earthy, warm tonka.
The first time I tried it I was swamped with strange florals. Not unpleasant, just muddled with some odd fruit notes.
When I tried it the second time,
geolinguist took one whiff of the imp and said "Oh! Baby aspirin!" He was picking up citrus notes under it. It starts nicely on my skin, then dries to about 2 hours of waxy vanilla candle smell. Once that is out of my system, it settles into a lovely warm vanilla scent with just a little spice underneath. Or at least it did this time. I will probably need to give it a couple more tries.
Bess
Inspired by the tragic, ill-fated love of Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester. This is our modernization of a 17th-century perfume blend favored by British aristocracy: rosemary, orange flower, grape spirit, five rose variants, lemon peel, and mint.
First try - no mint, some citrus, kind of a mix of floral and fruity. Luckily there were people around the office to smell me at various stages of this. Chris from the museum and Don both though it smelled nice, more fruity than floral. I thought it had an underlying aroma of baby powder, but they did not pick that it. Then it spent about 2 hours as raging, overpoweringly ick-rose.
geolinguist didn't care for that stage either, but I stuck with it and the end result was a nice floral. Very subtle. One of the girls at the warehouse work call thought it was just lovely. One of the guys said it started off subtle and then just went "whooom! That's niiiiiice!" Scarecrow
An agricultural gargoyle. Though he is the Guardian of the Crops and Keeper of the Fields, his visage is still the stuff of nightmares. The scent of a hot wind blowing through desolate, scorched, barren fields.
This was my free imp, not one I would have chosen for myself in a million years. I read the board on the BPAL site and the consensus seems to be that it is a very masculine scent. I sniffed the closed imp and just yelled "Grass!" Mark didn't get it. I tried it the other night as a joke.
geolinguist was over for dinner and Project Runway, so I put some on him and some on me just to see what the difference would be. Wet it was all grass, all the time, but not unpleasant. It was pretty boyish, but it made me feel tough and pretty at the same time. The grass notes fades into something kind of juniper-y and stayed there for a very long time. It really didn't change on my skin. On
geolinguist it faded to kind of a clean, soapy smell and vanished quickly. I smelled it on me all night.I tried wearing it to work the next day. Don's only comment was "you like that kind of thing?". Chris liked it a lot. One of the girls thought it was nice and identified it as "oh, sunflowers!" (could that be the earthy undertones you were getting,
geolinguist?) I felt self-conscious about smelling like a boy all day. Desdemona
Innocent, soft and pure: sweet pea, carnation and water lily.
I tried this last night. In the imp is smells like the pleasantness Bess fades into. Surprise! That's how it stayed on my skin! It was a lovely carnation/lily scent without the odd chemical-ick. I tried it at work today. Don seemed to like it. Chris said she liked the Scarecrow better. I mentioned thinking it was a pretty boy-scent and she said she had not picked that up at all.
Swank
Simply cool, the essence of Lounge: the scent of a crisp pomegranate martini.
I am trying this one right now.
When I first put it on, I was hoping the martini notes might have a bit of the juniper-underlay. At first it smelled very fruity, then faded to something sweetly spicy then....faded.
I reapplied and I smell like a pack of Starbursts so far. I kind of like the bright, fruity notes and I am getting something kicking under it again. It seems to be leaving quickly though. And morphing into Koolaid. Mark thinks I put too much on and that is why I got overwhelming ick from Bess and Thalia. We'll see what he and
geolinguist think of this one.