Little Bird

Fizzy BOOMs aren't working for me. I'm slowly making my way through my box of them and haven't been wowed yet. I didn't notice Ugh helping with any of my muscle aches after my work out. It had a faint fizzy lemon smell that reminded me of lemon soda (Sierra Mist) while it was dissolving, but it had no fragrance at all after about a minute of being in the water. No scent. No moisturizing properties that I noticed. Just... nothing.

I keep seeing people saying that the fragrances for these are subtle or light and a couple people like me... my fizzies have literally had no scent at all for the most part. I keep going through them in the hopes of having one that isn't a dud, but so far nothing. Detox is a colorless (no brown or yellow water) and odorless bathing experience. This bomb fizzed away quicker than some of my other ones. The sea salts gave the water a slippery feel that I liked, but it wasn't really moisturizing. Overall it was a lot like bathing in nothing. If I hadn't known, I would have figured I didn't put anything extra in the water at all. I have a bottle of the Detox oil and it's one of my favorite lime scents. My mom probably said my favorite thing about the Fizzy BOOMs, "They're aromatherapy baths that... don't have any smell?" ...

All of the early glowing reviews for these prompted me to purchase several bombs, and now I’m wishing I hadn’t wasted my money on them. I like my bath bombs to be highly scented (or even moderately scented would be acceptable) and moisturizing, and the Fizzy BOOMS just aren’t delivering. I love chocolate & cocoa & foodie scents. I was expecting this to be amazing with the cocoa absolute in it (Boomslang = perfection) but it falls dead flat. I could barely smell Zazzle at all in the baggie or even when I took it out and pressed my nose right up against the bomb. I wouldn’t even be so disappointed if these were lightly scented, but mine have been more on the verge of not scented at all. TKO is the only one that has seemed fragranced so far, and even that turned to a light, herbal baby powder once it hit the water. I filled the tub up with about three inches of water, no joke, and threw in Zazzle. I was sort of splashing around in a puddle of water and it had no fragrance whatsoever, so I just filled the tub up the rest of the way in defeat. My skin didn’t feel soft or moisturized after I got out of the bath and I needed my usual ton of lotion for my dry winter skin. The only thing Zazzle did was turn my water brown. I’ll use up the few bombs I have left, just because I don’t want to give them away and they’d be too expensive to ship to someone else, but I think I’ll pass on BPAL bath products from now on. I’m normally pretty easy to please with bath products, and I’m kind of stunned at how disappointing the Fizzy BOOMS have been for me. And I feel almost guilty posting ‘bad’ reviews, but the honesty is important to me... I wouldn’t recommend these.

I'll have to echo PilotKitten's sentiments with this one. It does just seem like a nice peppermint oil to me, and I don't think I'd ever pay so much for a peppermint oil. Plus, I'm a strange one in that peppermint seems to actually give me headaches if it hangs around for too long or is too strong. I can wear Lick It (though I didn't care for Lick It Again) and I love the tingly, cool feeling that it gives while the candy sweetness makes it wearable and cheery for me. Grr has no candied edge. If you can handle peppermint, a dab of this on the temples would probably be lovely. For me, this is too strong and too bracing. Even the Grr fizzy boom was too much for me to handle, though the booms are super lightly scented, just because I stayed in the bath for too long. I think I'm going to try what clover suggested with the rest of my decant, so I can get the benefit of a sort of quick peppermint treatment but it won't hang around all day.

I'm honestly not quite sure how to use this for my muscle aches, so this is mostly a scent review, lol. I wouldn't want to rub this into my sore muscles because the smell would be overpowering, and I don't see how just sniffing it would really help. Unless it's not for sore leg muscles or anything like that and I'm completely misguided Ugh isn't really a smell that I would want to have all over my person. It smells just like the herbal lemon cough drops that my father used to buy. They were either Ricola Lemon Mint or Ricola Honey Lemon... I can't remember exactly. Perhaps the mint because this does have a bracing chilliness to it that's more menthol than mint. Lemony, menthol, with a medicinal sweetness.

In the vial I smell mint and a funky bergamot that smells kinda fishy to me. Literally like fish. Sometimes lemony scents go off to my nose like that. I digress. On my skin... dirty, fishy mint. Thankfully the funky smell fades away quickly and the green tea kicks the bergamot back into submission. Green Tree Viper morphs into a super sugary mint with the smoothness of green tea in the background. I like. It's cool, refreshing, and reminds me of vanilla mints after a few minutes. It's pretty zingy and sinus clearing though. I smell it and get this chilly sharpness in my nose/head. After a half hour, this has lost it's original *pow* and is much softer now, fading quickly. I'm not much of a mint person and this one fades pretty fast, so I probably won't get a full bottle... but Green Tree Viper is still a nice little blend.

In the bottle, the creamy, cool sweetness of the tonka makes me swoon. On my skin, the herbal, smoky sharpness of the sage comes in and stomps out all of the other notes. The sage seems to swallow up the tonka and red sandalwood that I love. I'm left with a perfumey Snake Oil wrapped in worn leather and a sharp, bitter sage. ETA: I left my bottle to age, hoping that the sage would mellow out. Now this scent is mostly leather on me, but it's an intense, heavy, black, smoky leather that's too sharp for me (and I usually like leather scents). It feels like being smothered in black smoke and strips of burning leather. Not for me.

This was my most coveted of the Agony/Ecstasy Inquisition and so far none of the others have worked on me. In the bottle this smells like sharp, perfumey florals and I can pick out a hint of sweet, zesty mandarin underneath. I'm hoping my skin doesn't amp the florals. I wonder if this has black patchouli in it. The patchouli here smells like the black does on my skin, very dark and earthy in a black soil and leather sort of way (which I love). The earthiness is sort of the grounding note underneath the splash of bright citrus. The flowers pop up more as this dries down and the blend becomes more smoky and perfumey. I really wanted to like this (I really want to like at least one of the Valentine's blends), but it's really not for me either. The honeysuckle is the strongest note on my skin, and the lab's honeysuckle is strangely sharp on me. The mandarin also goes sharp and bitter on my skin while the parts that I love about this (the patchouli and frankincense) fade away to the background. The Ecstasy of True Love turns into a sharp honeysuckle-mandarin scent on me, with bare hints of resin and patchouli teasing me in the background, but never fully coming out. Boo

I am not too impressed with this fizzy. For the most part I've thought that the booms were pretty lightly scented, and this one was really light for me. I could barely smell it once it had dissolved and the smell didn't linger on my skin. I've only been filling my tub up about 1/3 of the way when I use these, and the smell is still insanely light. Grr is pretty much just a plain peppermint oil as far as I can tell. It turned my water a weird yellow, olive, dirty brown color and I didn't notice that it was moisturizing at all. Maybe peppermint oil just isn't my thing. I stayed in the tub for about a half hour and my headache turned into this really heavy, strange, throbbing sort of headache. By the time I got out, my headache was actually worse and I felt nauseous. I don't know if I can blame that on the peppermint oil or if I'm just sick, lol. Either way, I doubt I'd ever repurchase this one.

In the bottle, this is a soapy, perfumey, sharp, white floral. It scares me a little. I don't really don't get along with white florals. I wonder what possessed me to get a bottle of this (actually, I love the little pink snake on the label, lol). I like this well enough on my skin, at first, although I'm not so fond of the drydown. It isn't the soapy white floral that I was expecting; Cottonmouth starts out rather sweet on my skin and slightly fruity. It smells a lot like Juicy Fruit bubblegum. In the drydown, more of a perfumey, smoky floral comes out. Almost like a white floral incense. I'd give the drydown a 2/5 score, personally. It's just a little too smoky and sharp floral perfume on my skin. It doesn't really smell like Snake Oil to me at all, though it is incensey in a smoky, acrid sort of way.

(Thanks for decanting this one for me C ). The Agony of Longing was the inquisition scent that I was looking least forward to. Strong floral blends are not my thing. This one isn't really bad though. It's a soft blend that doesn't go hyper perfumey or sharp on me. It's also something that I would classify as a sweet blend. In the drydown, the florals here go a bit dry to my nose, and yet there's also something clean, sweet, and breezy about the whole thing. I'm horrible with picking out flower notes, but this doesn't exactly smell like rose, violet, or freesia to me. Longing is a blending of flowers that equals out to a clean sweetness on my skin. It does smell like floral perfume, but without the negative sharpness that I usually recognize from such blends. A soft, pretty, clean floral (almost like a sweet floral dusting powder on me after a while as it goes a tad powdery). I still wouldn't find myself wearing this sort of fragrance, but it doesn't bother me and I am kinda fond of it.

I've already traded my bottle of Ecstasy of Infatuation for this one (thanks C!), lol. While I do like Passion more than Infatuation, neither of them are really me scents. In the bottle this is a warm, powdery musk. It smells very womanly and bold. On my skin it turns into a sensual, powdery haze. Ecstasy of Passion is not a full out baby powder though (thankfully), the spice keeps it from going that way. This is a warm fragrance, dominated by musk. The sweet clove and vanilla give it a kiss of sweetness. The red musk, amber, and ambergris keep it very warm and musky. It’s MUSK, but with a sweet edge and a touch of powder. Something about musk fragrances like these are very adult to me. I imagine a beautiful and confident woman in her late 30’s+ wearing this scent. It’s sensual, bold, confident, and assertive. It’s just not the sort of thing that I could pull off… it doesn’t seem right on 19 year old me. I'd say it was for a more experienced seductress than myself; more for a woman who knows exactly what she wants and how to get it. I want to be this woman, but both of us know that I'm not really there yet. I feel like a little girl who got into an amazing older someone’s perfume collection when I’m wearing this. It's not a passion that fits a young Tania, lol.

The TKO Panacea oil is one of my favorites, so I was excited to try the bomb. I've been having issues with my insomnia again, so I decided to take a bath with this one at around 2 AM today. I was already exhausted and had a throbbing headache from lack of sleep at that point. The fizzie in its packaging was pretty nicely scented. Once it hit the water it faded a lot and became barely noticeable. I also ended up liking the scent more in oil form. The Panacea oil is lavender, sugared vanilla, and spun sugar on my skin. The TKO fizzie left me smelling like baby powder (which I hate) and hints of vanilla, while smelling more herbal and powdery in the water. Thankfully I wasn't awake for very long, so the smell didn't bother me. Hot baths are my cure-all for all that ails me (depression, muscle aches, insomnia, illness, headaches) so I love having an aromatherapy bomb to throw in there as well. The only negative thing that I noticed was that my legs got sort of itchy and red, though I'm not even sure that was from this bomb or just a stress reaction on my part. Eh. Anyhoo. Lightly scented water that wasn't exactly a pleasant smell, but seemed to do the trick. This wasn't really moisturizing either. As far as I can tell, this worked for its purpose of knocking me out. I wanted to sleep right there in the tub. When I finally did drag myself to bed (with my hair still soaking wet), I was laying there and trying to think and felt really muddled, like I couldn't really pull one thought together and my brain was done. I forgot to put on my engagement ring (it drives me crazy when I don't wear it now) & turn on my fan (drowns out the noise of my family fighting and being inconsiderate). I just stayed in my bed for several minutes debating how much I really needed either of those things, lol. All in all, I think I fell asleep within 10 minutes of getting out of the bath. I'm not crazy about TKO's scent translated into bath bombs... I like LUSH's Dream On a lot more for my insomnia baths (sunset orange color, super moisturizing, love the Dream Cream scent). This has been my favorite of all of the BOOMs that I have tried, but I doubt that this will be a repurchase either.

In the bottle this makes me think of fruity shampoo. It has a medley of sweet fruit notes and then something clean and breezy underneath. On my skin, the grapefruit and lemon verbena take over at first. This is very sharp, white, and effervescent on my skin. Citrus shampoo. In the drydown… the breezy florals, champagne, and clean white musk are giving this a clean and soapy something that I’m not exactly crazy about. The citrus edge fades over rather quickly and I’m left with soapy florals. This is a very white blend and thus is giving me an awful migraine. Ecstasy of Infatuation makes me feel a bit ill. It’s like inhaling a cheap shampoo and getting that soap caught in the back of my throat after a while. The accompanying migraine also isn’t so great for me. Someone who likes white floral perfumes would probably love this. It’s a soft blend in the drydown, but still too much for me to handle. I never can pick out any cherry, which was the note I was most hopeful for with this one

The combination of lemon & sage in the bottle smells kinda like lemon pepper seasoning. Lemon pepper and hints of the lab's tart, bitter blackberry note. On my skin... The lab's red patchouli is really iffy on me, and it's awful in this blend. It quickly amps up and smells like body odor in the worst way. A definite arm pit sort of smell. The bitterness of the blackberry and the strange lemon pepper seasoning mixed with that BO is not a good impression. In the drydown, the citrus notes and sage here are just too sharp on my skin... paired with the dirty patchouli (and I love regular and black patchouli)... this really smells like sweaty arm pits on me

In the bottle this is herbal, slightly sharp lavender and a hint of something smoky. On me, the 'burning love letters' bit goes into full bloom and this is ultra smoky. It's not smoky in a resinous way or anything... it really smells like burning paper. The lavender amps up after several minutes and takes over the blend. A really strong, herbal lavender with an unpleasant smokiness to it. I might smell a bit of clean sandalwood in here as well, but it's mostly lavender and smoke. I'm not really liking this one much. I can't see myself ever wearing it as a perfume... and I wouldn't want a room fragrance that's this smoky either.

I'm torn about using 'Oof'. Does it work? Yes, just as well as (and other people have mentioned) Vick's Vaporub. A cold menthol. Sinus clearing and bright. My mother actually loves this smell and has stolen my decant to wear as a personal perfume. I just don't know if I could justify paying $25+ for a bottle when a jar of Vicks is so much cheaper and lasts me a long time on its own. I'm glad this is available in bath bomb form though, because I can imagine this being a great scent to bathe in when you're feeling stuffy and sick. I ordered one of the fizzies and wish I had it to bathe with right now, actually.

I've put off trying Isaac because the tobacco frightened me. I don't really like the Living Skeleton, but it's such a light scent on me that it doesn't bother me or make me hate it either. I'm just sort of 'meh' about the whole thing. Mostly this is an incredibly dry, powdery scent on my skin with hints of a dirty grittiness lingering in the background that I am attributing to the tobacco. It wants to be a sharp man's cologne on my skin, but is too dry to fully give off that impression. Like cheap men's cologne that has been layered in dust and sitting around in tobacco smoke for a while. I thought that the boozy notes might give it more life, but it stays bone dry and bland on me. Thankfully, this is a light scent on me and fades pretty quickly.

Meskhenet is another fragrance that is hard for me to pin down, perhaps because I'm not really familiar with most of the notes. It makes me think of a muddy riverbank in fall, where there's damp mud and dry grasses crackling in a chilly breeze. There are wafts of a sweet, smoky incense and floral perfume coming in off of that breeze as well. This is one of those scents that I admire in concept, but I wouldn't actually ever wear it and I don't find myself wanting to try it out again. A lightly smoky incense, some perfumey florals, and something that smells like dry grasses to me.

I like blue lilac, but Virahotkantita is just too much floral for my skin chemistry to handle. This goes intensely sharp and soapy on me rather quickly. Soaps scented with a sharp floral perfume.

Kalantarika is a sharp, herbal, lavender fragrance on my skin. It's not the smooth, slightly sweet lavender that I love... it's herbal lavender, which is almost bitter and medicinal on me. The other reviews have summed this up pretty well. A sharp, bitter, herbal scent. Slightly green for some reason... and with lots of herbal lavender that amps up for me even more in the drydown. Not something I'd wear as a perfume, but perhaps as an aromatherapy blend in an oil burner.

Ugh. My bottle of Dark Delicacies had a crack in the cap and leaked all over. I got a good amount of it on my hands trying to get it out of the packaging though, which makes for easy reviewing, lol. I wonder if it was outside in the cold for long or something. Meh. I thought that this would be a sweet fragrance with creamy tonka & coconut backed up by some earthy resins and patchouli. It's not. This is a horribly musky floral on me. It's so sharp and heavy that it literally makes me cough when I smell it. Perfumey. Like bad drugstore perfume... like Britney Spears' Curious... This is all perfumey, unnatural, 'floral' smell. Sharp and bitter and not at all sweet on me... and it doesn't get better in the drydown. It gave me an awful headache and I had to remove the packaging from my room. I thought that I may have overapplied initially (on accident), so I took a bath and tested only a little dab of this... it's still just as overwhelming and unpleasant to me. Musky, perfumey, sharp, metallic, bitter floral... none of the sweetness or resins that I was hoping for

Kataniya is ozone and florals to my nose. The ozone is almost a cold, static before the storm sort of scent. In the drydown it just gets more dryersheet soapy on my skin. The floral part of this is sharp and perfumey. I can't pick out any one flower, it just has that horribly unpleasant, almost musky sharpness that I hate in floral perfumes. I wanted to love this, because I love the artwork for The Clockwork Woman, but this floralozone-esque blend is not for me.

On me, King Cobra smells like someone removed the sweet parts of Snake Oil and added in some woodsmoke where the vanilla sweetness would have been. It smells like some sort of dark musk & wood smoke, and it's just too sharp and acrid for my tastes.

I would recommend Boomslang... but I might have a slight bias, because that is my current favorite (I'm rather fanatical about it, actually, lol). Even though it is the chocolate blend, it's not really a sweet blend to me. The vanilla is more pronounced in that Snake than any of the others that I've tried yet, and it has the teakwood in it. If you already like Snake Oil, Boomslang to me was Snake Oil with a more pronounced vanilla, rolled in cocoa powder. Sooo good.