BPAL Madness!: magpiedee - Viewing Profile - BPAL Madness!

http://www.coolmompicks.com/2010/03/black_...alchemy_lab.php

I just reviewed BPAL for Cool Mom Picks. Always good to spread the smelly joy.

XIV

My first Chaos Theory. And it's fascinating! Imagine you are at the zoo, and it's a very hot July day, so you stop to get one of those Minute Maid frozen lemonades. You eat it as fast as you can until there is nothing left but the whippy liquid froth at the bottom, and you feel sated. You are standing in front of the panoramic safari section, with elephants enjoying dustbaths and giraffes twitching their tails and zebras placidly munching, feeling like you are almost-- but not quite-- all alone on the veldt where everything shimmers and sighs. Then you smell the lemonade. It's a lot like that.

Notes? Um... hot lemon. Hot, honey, sunshine, dusty, dry lemon. Lemon in a yellow polka-dot bikini. Lemon sweat. Lemon that laughs at Pine-sol and other cleaning products because they're too mainstream. With the tiniest dry-down of something sweetly soapy, like baby soap or laundry detergent in the sunshine. In fact, the exact quote it brings to mind is Ron's fake magic spell from the first Harry Potter:
Sunshine, daisies, butter, mellow... my Chaos Theory smells like yellow!

It's a fascinating scent adventure for me. Doesn't make me feel sexy or sweet or womanly or spicy or responsible... just makes me see the sun wavering over stunted trees and everything bathed in golden sweat.

Hell's Belle... is like the sassy pirate wench that beat the crap out of Anne Bonny and stole her ship and is now drinking her rum through a straw in a coconut while working on her tan.


Seriously, Hell's Belle is what I had hoped Anne Bonny would smell like, because it is the perfect epitome of a fun-loving pirate wench for me. Knee-high black boots, big, floppy hat, floofy white shirt, lipstick the same red as the blood on her cutlass.

In more concrete perfume terms, HB is warm, golden, languorous, swingy like a hammock. Well-rounded, like it has aged just enough. It's the color of sun in rum, or of polished golden birdseye maple. Maybe just a touch of green and brown, but mostly gold. The imp, immediate smell and drydown are identical to me, and the scent keeps going for a good, long while. I am 100% behind Hell's Belle. She's me pirate buddy, and we read Cosmopirate together while we paint our toenails, yarr.

Yemaya... is like a glittery blue dragonfly caught in a puddle of melon juice and buzzing a bit with drunkenness.

I haven't decided yet whether my 5mL is a keeper. I love the idea of Yemaya, especially as a mother, but I think the Yemaya that struck me and inspired my big bottle purchase was the TAL blend. Yemaya is very strong, sweet and fruity for me, and although the drydown is lovely, it just doesn't last. Within an hour, I couldn't smell a single hint of the sweet, melony goodness. But lovely.

Shango... is exactly like Lady MacBeth deep-throating a banana.

In the imp, I found it vile and reminiscent of cough syrup and hearth smoke, but after reading the reviews, I knew I had to try it. And thank goodness I did! It's got that deep, mellow, smokey aubergine-merlot of Lady MacBeth, but with a warm summer component of coconut and banana that makes it infinitely wearable. I almost ran off the road this morning sniffing my wrists. I was going to order a 5mL of Hell's Belle, but I will probably get Shango instead.

Huzzah for Shango!! :P