418 replies to this topic

[janelle_hell]

Dried roses, rose leaf, Spanish moss, oakmoss and deep brown earth.

This smells exactly like it's described. A perfect rendition of the scent of dried roses,darkened by oakmoss. i like this perfume because it smells like the heart shaped box i keep my most treasured letters in. i put,like,half the sample bottle into a 7-day votive candle and it's made my bedroom smell *luxurious*.

[shriekingviolet]

Initial Impression:
Sorrowful and decaying. Like wilted flowers at an unattended gravesite.

After Wearing It:
I stand by my original impression. I did like that the roses here definitely smelled like the dried variety, which I prefer, and the earthy background made this one interesting, though mournful.

Final Thoughts:
It's something that I'd have to be in the mood to wear though, but I definitely would like this as a room fragrance, especially for special ritual occasions. It was nice to find a rose scent I'd wear again as well. Yay!

[viciousviolet]

Zombi has to be experienced to be believed. If anyone here likes truly earthy scents, this is lighter than Thanatopsis and is identical to freshly turned earth and crumbling dry roses. It’s like nothing I have ever smelled before in a perfume.

[Gothabillywench]

This is amazing. The description is dead on (no pun intended!). I liked it as it made me imagine an old Victorian graveyard that looks slightly sinister, with blood red dried roses blowing across damp earth. gave this one to boy as he has a thing about zombies so guess that makes this unisex?

[catiebloo]

It's hard to decide what oil is the most prominent in this one. At first sniff on the skin, what i mostly smell is the dried roses, then the mossyness (sp? even if it is a word!) comes through. If i were to describe a scene most fitting to it, i would think of an old horror movie, or perhaps the bit on Micheal Jackson's Thriller Video where it's all misty and the hand comes up from the grave through all the dried leaves and damp earth.....it really does smell like what you would expect Zombies to smell like! Either that or an old Victorian mahogany dressing table, thick with dust with an ornate mirror strung with pearls and powder puffs and little trinket boxes everwhere...sort of musty.Kinda like what you would expect this place http://www.gothicros...com/index3.html to smell like. After having been on a while the scent's still there, but much softer. More rosey than mossy i would say. All in all a nice "Sunday" scent

[Tesseljoan]

This one is, as the reviewers above have stated, very true to its description. Dried roses and upturned soil. A bit dusty mixed with fresh. Once again, an earth scent which isn't quite me, but I love the concept that has been captured in a bottle.

[quinkel]

After getting the sample from Tesseljoan (thanks!) here is my review:

First impression
Roses, no doubt about that, I cannot smell the soil, but definitly there is more to it than just roses because I had a rose oil once (bodyshop) and it doesn't even come near.

After while
It stays long without changing much from the first sniff. I like it but to me it's not really an exiting smell enough to buy a bottle.

edited to say: Unbelievable what changes you go through with BPAL scents. In the first review (bold) I stated that Zombi is not really something for me. That was written when I tried it first day. After finishing the Imp I became convinced, MUST have a bottle and 5ml is NOT enough

It is so crisp, juicy, lickable, somehow I am tempted to drink it. It´s secret, hauted, and makes me feel spooky. Also gives me an awearness of the dark and haunted. Want to walk on a old graveyard wearing this..

Edited by quinkel, 23 February 2004 - 08:58 AM.

[sedentaryedge]

Again, my usual dismissal of roses hinges on a general dislike of potpourriish perfumes. This scent mysteriously IS at once dry and NOT potpourri-y. The earth note in it is subtle, not particularly fertile-smelling and dusty. There's a lot of bracken/thorn in there, and a particularly green/wooden rose. Those of you uninterested in typical bright red rose scents might dig this one, as it's subtle, dry and distant on the dry down. Folorn and spare.

[any_old_actress]

everyone seems to like this but me. what i imagine a 2000-year-old zombie smells like is what this reminds me of! the comparison to michael jackson's thriller movie is dead on - literally it lasted a long time, for the life of me i couldn't scrub it off!

[byrdie]

This was one of the original six from my first order. For some reason, I was on an earthy kick that day.

wet ~ My first impressions were of dirt and spice. Clean, freshly turned earth.

drying ~ The spice scent morphed into drying, slightly off flowers -- overly ripe roses that are just starting to die.

dry ~ The scent starts to decompose into a more zombi-like jumble. Individual scents become indistinct, as if the undead has risen and the earth, moss and roses have pressed together beneath its force.

aftermath ~ This is not a morning scent. I'd probably wear this to a performance: a play or a friend's choral concert; perhaps an evening wedding. Some dignified event after sundown. It's a wonderful scent for putting on airs. I could picture feeling that I knew more than others while mingling among them and leaving a haunting scent curling behind me.

[paperdoll]

Initial Sniff: As everyone else has stated, the BPAL description is dead on. Dried roses and moss really evoke imagery of graveyards and dusty Victorian attics.

Wearing: This did not change much at all on my skin, or when going from wet to dry. I feel like it really affected my demeanor - I had a very Serious, Unfunny Girl attitude all evening.

Final Impressions: This is a beautiful scent that provokes powerful imagery. I don't know how much I will use it, but I will definitely keep it around just to sniff the bottle every once in a while if nothing else!

[quantum spice]

you could lick the dirt off of this dusty rose.

it's interesting, but i won't be buying a bigger bottle, and i don't know if i'll keep the imp.

[lucytalk]

I love this, and I'm not usually a fan of rose scents. In the vial I can smell earth and moss with the roses really in the background. On, it's a very earthy, dirty rose (in the nicest possible way), and lasted all day. I didn't really find that it changed on me at all. As the others have said, this is totally spot-on for the name, and it does inspire a certain frame of mind. I wouldn't wear it everyday, but it makes me feel confident, although in a formal kinda way. I need a 5ml of this!

[blackrayne]

First impressions...very wet, freshly dug earth. Decay. Dead, crushed roses. Damp mossiness.

I feel like I should be walking through an ancient cemetery after a cool fall rain, with freshly unearthed coffins surrounding me and decay everywhere.

I think Beth definitely got this one dead on...it's amazing how she can evoke such imagery from a blend of scents.

[TygherRayn]

This one was one of Jason's picks, not mine, and I have to say he was a little disappointed at first. After it dried on him it became rather powerfulyl rose, and not much else. I still thought it was nice on him, though.

Wet it's very earthy mixed with decaying leaves (a good thing I promise!), blended with a slight floral tone. As it dried I noted as others have the over-ripe roses, just ready to be scattered to the winds.

When totally dry it's a sweet rose with a hint left of the mossy dirt notes left. Not my favorite scent, this is still one of the better rose blends I've smelled so far.

[Hallows_Eve]

In the bottle- The Roses are still alive in some old lady's house or attic. Old and musty smell. Reminds me of he 1920's for some reason.

On me: Dead Roses and dust. I can't decide if I like it. I sort of do, but I sort of think "Is this for me?" The scent seems familiar. Like going through a great grandparents home, but something darker is lingering underneath. Creepy and tempting at the same time.

On my husband- less rose and more earthy where I was more the opposite. I wouldn't have imagined that it would be a masculine scent, and if it smelled on him like on me, it wouldn't be. But his chemistry tends to overpower florals and take on other notes instead.

[hypothermya]

The very first time I had the chance to find the BPAL site, this was one of the first scents I picked out. It just sounded too perfect. I could just imagine the smell of the heavy rich soil, and the dried roses.

Of course, when I got my order at first, I was too overwhelmed with scents and excitement, and the first one I tried was Persephone, which had a not so pleasant effect on me -- it turned into a roses and babypowder scent, which was nice, but not what I wanted. So Zombi fell to the bottom of the pile, in fear that it would also lose the other notes and become a heavy rose/baby powder scent.

In the Bottle
Oh, that's roses alright! Not the drippingly sweet roses of Persephone, but still heavily sweet. And there's some murkiness to it, but the rose is so strong and such a turn off for me at this point that I don't want to smell it further.

Wearing It
When I apply it, it takes a small amount of time to settle down and dry, but immediately my skin does what I naturally expect it to -- it suddenly discovers the rose oils and amplifies them beyond belief. It's this beautiful rose smell, but *nothing* (not even a hint) that resembles earthy smells. Just roses. To my relief, there isn't much of a baby powder smell, not compared with how Persephone reacted, at least. Just a small bit.

I was tempted to let it sit for a while to see how it developed, but I'd already done so with Persephone and I wasn't in the mood to spend another day with an overpowering rose scent around me. If it behaved at all like Persephone, it wouldn't have faded very quickly either -- all the more reason to wash it off after a half an hour. When I washed it off, it was still strong and flowery with just a hint of powder.



I'm discovering more and more that I'm not a fan of roses, despite the fact that my skin chemistry picks them up and runs with them. If I did like roses, I'd be in luck, because I would have found an oil that lasts all day and all night, but alas... I used to be fond of roses, but the more floral scents I smell (Persephone, Viola, Zombi, etc.), the more I find that I'm not a fan of traditional rose scents. Pity, because I was really banking on this one. Fortunately, Beth has *so* many other winners that it's hard to be too dissapointed.

[supasonicsage]

I guess my guys and I's reactions to this scent show how much astrology come into play sometimes.

Didn't know it before, but even though I am a virgo, I have a ton of fire in my chart. May be why I am drawn to those heavier spicy scents. Steve has a lot of earth in his chart.

He loves this on me. I tolorate it because he loves it.

I have the same problem with most rose scents. They turn into rose and not much else. The rose in this is, as others have said, much drier. I do get some earth with this too, which is unusual, because of the rose and all.

In the bottle it is exactally what the description states. Earth and roses. Wet, it has a strange earthy tang with dry roses over the top. I start to like this one when it dries down. It gets a little more toned down, the earth scents relax a little and the rose comes out more.

I will probably buy a big bottle of this because he likes it so much, and I have a feeling that it will grow on me over time.

[Ina Garten Davita]

First Impression: Dead on with the description.

Second Impression: This reminds me of the end of the rose growing season when there are just thorny stems left and dried petals and leaves decaying into the once-rich soil. It really does evoke sadness.

Final Analysis: I really like this one, even with the sad twinges. It's earthy yet very pretty.

[Jenmaha]

Wow. I've never smelled a perfume like this...it's honestly bizarre, but in a very good way. I get old, cold, crumbly, dirt from this, with a very dusty rose. It's very alluring, but strangely...I can't tell if I want to smell like this or not, even though I like it so much.

[Imptress]

Let me start by saying that while I haven't cared for rose scents in general before I found BPAL, I've really enjoyed Beth's rose scents... with the exception of this one.

To my nose, the earthy note of this made the rose way too "high" and cloying, exactly what I have NOT liked about other rose scents in the past. Hubby took a couple of whiffs and pronounced it "too heavy". I was afraid this would end up giving me a headache so, for the first time in trying a new BPAL frangrance, I took an alcohol wipe to it... and it didn't budge. I left it alone after that, figuring I'd give it time to see how it developed. Now all I can say is that my cleavage smells like dirt and rotten roses. Bleah.

[MetropolisGal]

This was the scent I was most anxious to try, and when my imps arrived today, I was in heaven.

One sniff of the imp of "Zombi" was enough to send me into orbit! The roses! The moss! The Earth! Especially that earth scent - I'm a Pisces, but I get off on the smell of freshly turned dirt in the garden. (Must have something to do with my Taurus rising.)

When I put it on my wrists, the predominant scent after a few minutes was that of dirt and roses. Mostly the dirt. Then the roses. Then the dirt again. I couldn't stop smelling my wrists!

After awhile, it began to settle into the scent of roses, but not roses in bloom, but roses slowly dropping their petals onto the ground. Still a bit of the earthiness, but becoming more like dust and decay. Still couldn't stop smelling my wrists. I had the overpowering urge to pull Huysmans' "Against Nature" from my bookshelf and to pretend I was a Decadent and to lay on my chaise longue.

Finally, in the end, the roses won, but they were decayed and dying roses. Morbidly delicious. I cannot wait to order a 5ml bottle!

[xoe]

Ohhh. I am so obsessed with Zombi now. I am reluctant to try the other scents because I just want to keep sniffing Zombi.

At first sniff o'the imp, I got roses and dirt. It is the perfect perfume for a funeral. Which seems like a strange thing to say, but is true.

When I put the perfume on, the Oakmoss came out. REALLY came out at first. I was Oakmoss and rose, and I was briefly disappointed because I couldn't smell the soil. But, luckily that earthy dirty smell made itself known shortly. Maybe it had just been there in the background all along, waiting for me to realize that it was there to support the whole thing.

This is so beautiful and lush and dark and just what I needed.

[Scylla]

First impression in the vial: Smells like a freshly dug grave!

Wet: Damp, fresh earth and decaying roses. Anyone ever see the movie "Frailty?" This is what I imagine the rose garden next to the Meiks' house smelled like.

On drydown: dry rose potpourri

Not my thing, but interesting. Will be heading for the swap pile.

Edited by Scylla, 19 August 2004 - 09:59 PM.

[octopusgrrl]

In the bottle: yup, that’s definitely earthy alright…

Wet: smells like spicy potting mix – urgh!

Dry: the real "dirt"-iness wears off a bit, leaving a gentle earthy spice.

Verdict: I’m not sure what I was thinking when I ordered this, it pretty much smells exactly as you’d expect from the description. Not my thing at all, although much respect to the Lab for creating such an incredibly strange scent!