curlofsmoke

Wet on skin: quite floral but well blended, it has quite a vintage vibe about it. It’s not as lusty as I was expecting - Defututa does mean well fucked, after all. The jasmine is in there somewhere but not shrilly taking over the whole show as it normally does on my skin. It’s a more ladylike floral than I would normally like, but I do like it, I think because it somehow reminds me of those 1930s/40s perfumes I am fond of.

Drydown: softening a little and there are wisps of vanilla, honey and cinnamon now. It isn’t quite what I was wanting - a stickily languid post-coital scent with prominent vanilla and honey - but I think I’ll keep the imp. It smells to me like a lady in the 1930s, drinking a cocktail in the gathering dusk. Her red lipstick is perfectly reapplied, her stockings straightened, and this soft skin scent the only evidence that an hour earlier she had been dishevelled and noisy, rolling around in bed with her lover. In that very delicate way it is a sexy scent.

Wet on the skin: lots of langorous yet perverted red musk and tobacco, reminding me of several other BPALs I have tried, especially Horreur Sympathique (the grapes in that made me queasy, sadly). Not bad but not distinctive.

A little while later: Slightly sickly and obnoxious tobacco. I always like the idea of tobacco (even though I'm a non-smoker) but perhaps it's a tricky note for me. There is another note peeking through - an intriguing floral that I think must be the black orchid, because it spontaneously gives me flashbacks to trying Tom Ford's Black Orchid. It's a sensual and mysterious floral and I would like it to wrestle through the tobacco more.

Drydown: the tobacco is being softened quite a bit by a golden warmth, and there is now a slight spiciness that I think is the nutmeg - mmm.

I think Beth has again captured the decadent, beautiful but secretly syphilitic world of Baudelaire, I'll have to try it again and decide whether I want to put up with the overbearing tobacco stage. I'll also shove it under the boy's nose and see what reaction I get

If you like the seduction/repulsion quality of the Baudelaire blends you might like to sniff them whilst reading Black Venus by Angela Carter, who also evokes his world with an extraordinary intensity.

Hi,

 

I am in search of my ultimate femme-fatale perfume.

 

I made a research and have come up with this bpals. Here are:

 

Liz: A light, feminine vanilla floral perfume and a swirl of smoke and leather

 

Mama-ji: Spices, cardamom, nutmeg, and flowers

 

Lamia: Deadly elegance: pale orchid, vanilla amber, black currant, white peach, champaca, coconut, Arabian myrrh, Burmese vetiver, and oude

 

Mastermind: An elegant cologne of olibanum, opoponax, leather accord, black amber, bois de jasmine, cade wood, pale balsam, orange blossom, oudh, black plum, bourbon vanilla, and sandalwood.

 

Opium Poppy: Opium teaches only one thing, which is that aside from physical suffering, there is nothing real. A bitter, soft, fragile flower

 

Black Lily: Breathtaking darkness, a vision of grace in shadow

 

Black Rose: Exquisitely melancholy. The background scent to an ancient exequies. Heavy, dark and floral: a blend of roses, with a touch of amber and musk

 

Belle époque: Lily of the Valley, vanilla, mandarin and red sandalwood

 

Kubla Khan: Through sunlit caves of ice, roses unfurl amidst dancing waves of serpentine opium smoke and amber tobacco, golden sandalwood, champaca, tea leaf, sugared lily, ginger, rich hay absolute, leather, dark vanilla, mandarin, peru balsam, and Moroccan jasmine

 

Lucretia: Iris, black amber, sage, Kashmir wood, vanilla musk, mandarin and violet

 

Marquis de Merteuile: Opulent galbanum and amber, glistening peach, and a bouquet of French florals, with a merciless undertone of jonquil and heartless vetiver

 

Medea: Night-blooming cereus, black orchid, black currant and myrtle leaf enshrouded in the incense of Hecate's cypress and myrrh, and the dark rage of magickal labdanum and intoxicating poppy

 

New Orleans: Reminiscent of hothouse blooms on a humid night, ripe, but touched with decay. Sweet honeysuckle and jasmine with a hint of lemon and spice

 

Fallen: Cherubic white sandalwood and golden musk with a dark halo of amber, a breath of imperial florals, unbending woods, and the shadow cast by vetiver and violet

 

Languor: Paperwhite and black narcissus, three lilies, black poppy and tuberose and a hint of hypnotic opium den haze

 

Whip: Agony and ecstasy: black leather and damp red rose

 

Salomé: Exotic and lush, brimming with grace and viciousness: almond with star jasmine, oakmoss, red sandalwood and Egyptian musk.

 

 

What do you think of these? I could not decide. Help me to chose my film-noirish type femme-fatale scent

Well, from your list I have only tried Black Rose which smelled more romantic than anything to me, but skin chemistry does differ. The BPALs I have so far found to be femme fatale-ish were Hell's Belle, Black Dahlia, Wanda and Vixen. I hope this is helpful

Yes woodsy, yes aquatic, but dominated by a powderyish perfumyness (to give a technical evaluation here). Later it becomes warmer and richer and quite nice actually, but like the kind of expensive somewhat masculine perfume my mother would wear. Not me.

JASMINE! Unfortunately, although I love jasmine from Neal's Yard, Beth's always smells like powdery bath oil on me. Later on it improves into a soft floral with a fresh note. Pleasant but rather nondescript and not really me. None of these pretty wispy scents seem to suit me - just all the perverted sex whore ones.

Straight on it's a lush floral with a burnt sugar edge, reminds me a little of Hell's Belle. Must be the gardenia. Then it develops and becomes pinker, fruitier and strongly reminiscent of Bordello. I think someone said there was Dragon's blood in this? So maybe the cherry of the Dragon's Blood? Strangely, DB always seems to smell different on me depending on what it's mixed with. Can't detect any jasmine or red musk (which both usually dominate a scent for me). An hour later and is still Bordello-ish with a strongly creamy edge.

Verdict: I waver between thinking this is a nice warm elegant scent and thinking it doesn't completely work on me. Well, it was good to try it but I'm glad I'm not desperate to track some more down.