khazakant

I'd go with either San Francisco (a little on-the-nose, but it's a great scent) or Amsterdam. It's not metallic, but a very fresh floral aquatic that really reminds me of the Bay Bridge for some reason - I was wondering what it reminded me of since I tried it the other night, actually!

My friend Jozhik and I are going out on Halloween together. He's going to be Niko Bellic and I've got a gas mask, some industrial safety clothing from the factory my family works at, and some surplus stuff from Chechen war in order to be a crazy Russian Stalker cosplayer.

They're not exactly the kind of costumes you're concerned about smelling pretty in. But I want an excuse to wear my darker scents and also an excuse to force my fragrances on Jozhik. Any suggestions? I was thinking maybe Death on a Pale Horse or Umbra for Jozhik, not sure about myself.

I think I know what you mean, actually. It seems to me that there are at least two main kinds of BPAL leather notes: there's what I've come to think of as the "stiff black" leather smell, like in Iago, De Sade, and Wanda, and then there's this "soft brown" leather, which I like a lot better. The latter shows up, for me at least, in Shrunken Heads, Hand of Glory, and Whip.

I seeee. *tents fingers* I thought the lab used another kind of leather note. I bet this one would work great on me.

A lot of bpal's limited edition leather blends tend to smell a bit softer and sweeter to me than the GC leather blends. The Traveller was a more recent LE that smelled like soft, well worn leather. Dee is a softer, sweeter leather that's in the GC.

 

Iago and De Sade are both pretty dark, intense, and masculine, I think, so you might want to try some of the more complex and feminine leather blends, like Liz or Tezcatlipoca.

I dig dark, intense, and masculine (I'm wearing Satyr right now, for example) which is one reason why Iago and De Sade not working on me has been keeping me up nights. But I'm not a stranger to complex and feminine blends, and I've heard good things about Tezcatlipoca especially. *takes a note of them*

Damn, well. I have one of those chemistries that gives an instant sex change to any feminine scent I put on (which is great because I can pick up anything in the catalog instead of hovering around the men's/gender neutral scent rec thread ) but here it got a touch ridiculous.

By Maiden, you mean blood-covered, naked, screaming, Tyrfing-wielding Viking maiden, right? Because that's what it does on me. My skin also amps carnation. Cool. It deepened into something like "cloves, cinnamon, and a pine forest" to quote my brother. And yes, it is ultra-masculine. It's almost the cologne I've been looking for all my life. Only something in it is turning into a citronella candle on me. Possibly the rose. So I sicced the tiniest layer of Satyr on it, which ate most of the citronella and turned it into cloves, cinnamon, pine forest, and animal musk with a sharp, green core. I smell like a lycanthropic barbarian king, which is something like the exact opposite of a maiden. It's like a meanier, spicier Fenris Wolf.

Weirdest damn way any BPAL has gone on my skin. I don't expect anyone else to have the same result, but I thought it was funny enough that I'm sharing.

I seem to be having a problem with BPAL's leather note. I tried De Sade and Iago, and the leather in there was sharp and plasticy and reminded of (I've mentioned this a few times) the waterproofing spray I used to use on my leather jackets and not of leather itself. I'm not sure if it's my skin or if I just don't like the way the leather note smells, since it seems about the same in the imp.

I guess it's a long shot, but is there anything containing a leather that isn't as sharp and artificial? I love leather in general, and it bums me out that I can't wear the smell.

Oh, Lord, I have no idea what I did to this poor scent. On me, it smells exactly like ... well, I'm not sure how many southerners we have here, but Van Van oil. Which smells like the world's worst citronella candle. After I put it on my dad started making faces and asking, "What smells like bug spray?"

What a damn disaster. How the hell did that happen?

In the bottle: Mint, and something really sickly and artificial. Ach.

Drydown: The mint vanishes, and so does the artificial feeling. Did not get snow, or dirt, or juniper, or moss, or pine. But certainly an aquatic. This smells exactly like when I was a kid and I'd run around after the rain and stick my face in the sheets drying on the clothesline. It really is an energetic, happy scent. After a while the dirt comes out a little and just a hint of mint comes back, the scent mellows some. It's gorgeous. I don't like clean scents much but my boyfriend does, and this is something I would definitely wear for him.

Try Satyr if you like Fenris Wolf. I have both and I wear them religiously. It's like a heavier, darker, earthier version of Fenris. Animalistic, definitely. I never got that "this fragrance is liquid sex!" thing, but the review thread seems to find it pretty erotic. (Personally, it just makes me want to kill a buck and drag it around the forest with my teeth.)

In the bottle: Very dry cola, maybe a hint of mint, and my grandfather. He was an auto mechanic and this smells a lot like his toolbox or his cellar. Most everyone in my family is a mechanic or a factory worker and that metal-concrete-and-grease smell was always one of my favorite scents growing up. Smells like home.

On application: I lost the cola initially, but the dry note deepens into a rich, solid scent like earth, or cocoa or chocolate. What I thought was mint is now turning into cloves. Gorgeous. As it starts to dry something in the background starts to come out, a very clean and clear scent like pavement and rain.

Drydown: It stabilizes somewhat. The cloves calm down a lot, which I was worried about because I'm not big on cloves. Now it just seems like a earthier, more organic version of how it smelled like in the bottle. Mmmmm, this is perfect.

Final verdict: This scent is beautiful and strange. I love it. I smell like the world's most comforting garage, and I want to buy every bottle of this ever made.

i love this game! i'm trying to find recommendations for people but i'm not sure i've tried enough different blends to make any good ones.

 

anyway, here's me...

 

i was a theatre major, but i focused on set and properties design, and on stage management. i've always loved theatre and film, as well as music and literature - i love to sing, and i'm always in the middle of a couple books at a time. i'm a true scorpio, through and through - i'm a pretty private person, and people always tell me that i'm mysterious and they don't know what i'm thinking. i'm fiercely loyal, and while i stay cool most of the time, if you mess with my friends or family i'll definitely come after you. i'm very passionate about the things i care about, which include cooking and building fragrances, traveling, reading and writing, running (training for my first marathon), fashion and shopping, and spending time with my friends. i love wine, beer, whiskey and gin, and i can drink most guys under the table. i also smoke cigarettes, cigars and hooka, although i keep pretending i'll quit. my favorite colors are red, grey, black and dark green. my sense of humor is very dry, and i love sarcasm and wit. i'm a diagnosed (chronic primary idiopathic) insomniac, and no, hot milk doesn't help. i'm afraid of water but i love being at the beach and near the ocean, especially at night.

 

it seems like people have also been including physical characteristics, so...i'm a short, petite girl with curves. i have short red hair and big green eyes, and super pale skin. i've got a great ass.

 

thoughts?

At first I was thinking Desdemona because I liked the depth of it, and for the watery feeling some people get from the scent ... I thought that it was somehow significant that you like to be near the water but are afraid of it. But then I thought it wasn't a great choice, that was totally inappropriate, there should be something darker with more, I don't how to put it, roundness to it. Not like "voluptuousness" but like a roundess with gravity and strength, the deep and slow roundness of a wave, an oceanic kind of scent. I don't know how to explain it very well. Then I thought, goddamn, BLACK PEARL. That would be perfect for you. And maybe Anne Bonney for your drier, more sarcastic side.

As for me, I'm a double major in ... haha, no. I dropped out of school when I was thirteen. I was a hustler for most of my teenage years. Now I'm just desperately unemployed. (Although good at getting money out of people, which is why I have a computer and money to burn on BPAL.) I want to become a filmmaker, I love the cinema, the cinema is the joy of my life. I like Werner Herzog, Andrej Tarkovsky, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Frederico Fellini in particular because their films have the most intensity and life, and to me they're the most joyful films because of that. I don't like French films except for Truffaut because they're all about mind and technique instead of the cinema, which should be like living and breathing, like it has a pulse, like blood. I also like films with BMWs in them, and other kinds of cars. Aside from my cinema and that I was a prostitute, I think the only important thing left to say about me is that I loved a man and I gave myself to him entirely. I think if you know these three things about me you can make a complete picture of myself. I don't have any hobbies, but I like smoking unfiltered Russian cigarettes and drinking.

As for physical characteristics, I look like that. *points to my icon* Like I'm younger than I am, and kind of like a girl instead of like a man. I usually wear a leather jacket and my favorite thing to wear is my Iggy Pop shirt. People always think I seem like a foreigner no matter where I go, even though I still live in the city where I was born (a small industrial city on the East coast).

My first impression when I put this on is that it was a dense, dry, very elemental, masculine scent - like soot, or dust, even unsweetened chocolate, with a hint of florals. And for some reason, something that reminded me of Dorian. Go figure. As drydown started, the amber and those florals came out and started deepening the scent. It took a while to settle down. My impression was that it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be sweet or rough. (Interesting dichotomy, ain't it?) Damn, this really is a morpher. Finally it settled into a warm kind of masculine, which it reminded me a lot of Fenris Wolf. Couldn't have been happier about that because Fenris Wolf was pretty much my signature BPAL. (I was thinking, "Hey, so this is just Fenris Wolf, except it'll magically make me sexy, huh? Hell yeah.") The previous reviewer also mentioned that to her it went through phases where it smelled like her favorite scents. Weird.

My one problem with it is after a few hours it started to smell something like Play-Doh. But today I tried layering it with Posset's Montana (or maybe West Virginia, I can't remember now), which smelled great with it and as I predicted, covered up the Play-Doh later on. I'm betting that's just my chemistry, though.

As for effect ... well, I think I do look better wearing it. (I admit I was kinda checking myself out in the mirror the first time I put it on.) And I felt sorta ... not turned on, exactly, but everything that goes along with being turned on except actual arousal. Tense, energetic. Charged. I've worn it most days this week and I haven't really been out partying at all - so I'll have to update if I ever drag my ass to a gay bar - but everyone's been a little nicer and more talkative to me, and I have been getting some extra attention. From women. Which isn't quite what I was going for here. I'm either too straight-acting for my own damn good or there just haven't been any gay guys around.

In the bottle:

Heady. Hm, for whatever reason I got the impression that it might turn into really generic cologne on my skin.

On my skin:

The cinnamon came out bearing M16s and phosphorous grenades and promptly destroyed every single one of the other elements. After the brutal takeover, it set up a provincial government dedicated to irritating the hell out of my nose. Damn, I got nothing out of this but straight-up cinnamon. A sharp, pissed-off cinnamon at that. Smells exactly like sticking my nose in a bag of cinnamon-flavored candy.

[d]Drydown:[/b] The other elements do come out a bit in drydown, but really, it just turns the scent from "atomic fireballs" to "that old fashioned cinnamon hard candy my grandmother likes." It's not terrible if what you want is a really basic cinnamon scent, but it's underwhelming, and the strength of it is a little off-putting. Sigh.

Oh, man, I remember running into the Ifrit section of American Gods as a young gay kid and reading it over and over and over and ... anyway. Heh. My point is, I was sorta emotionally invested in this scent and was scared to hell and back it would let me down. Wrong, alhamdulillah. This is everything I wanted. This scent has so much damn personality. It's the smell of a man who's exotic, wild, and intense, who's been pulling you in since the minute your eyes met. A man who understands the meaning of the word possession. And who just led you out into the desert for a quickie.

In the bottle it smelled like ... honestly, it smelled kinda like my grandma's Chanel No. 5 to me for some ungodly reason. The sweeter notes and the dragon's blood seemed much more pronounced in the bottle, and I was afraid it was going to be too artificial and perfume-y for me to like. But when I put it on, it dried out a bit and the more natural elements, the dusky spices and the smell of the sand, came out on my skin. Melded perfectly with my natural scent. Makes you feel less like you've just slathered on perfume oil and more like a force of nature. I'm trying to figure out a way to say "it's intense, in a low-key way" that doesn't sound stupid, but it's a stoic, distant kind of scent, alluring rather than overbearing, quietly powerful.

To sum it up: damn, this is liquid sex.