bheansidhe

Five dark, aggressive, furious musks with ambergris bouquet, Malaysian rainforest plant extracts, black amber and orange peel. I've only been a BPAL groupie for three weeks (and have acquired 50 imps - an aquisition rate of 2.38 imps PER DAY. Yes, I've stepped away from the eBay crack pipe for now). This is my first forum scent and my second posted review, FWIW. I ordered this before I'd figured out that ambergris is bad on my skin and musks are hit-or-miss. So I was thrilled to unwrap my little neatly decanted vial (thanks to roostergrrl/wolfgrrl), but I didn't have high hopes for this one smelling great on me. In vial: I smell complex, somehow bright musk with a clear green middle note. Not overwhelmingly heavy or feral. On wrist (dry skin, where scents will go powdery) and in crook of arm (moister skin, where scents stay truer): Not.. not a bad smell. More like a sophisticated commercial perfume than an enraged primate. Drydown: I dutifully sniff every few minutes for the next hour. I never detect the orange peel (and I wouldn't know the smell of a "Malaysian plant extract" if it bit me, though I suppose that's the green note I smell in the vial) or discern the amber. Instead, the musk continues to make me smell like that 80's perfume "Charlie" - that is, overwhelmingly perfumed. The only bright spot is that there's enough musk to smother the ambergris (which goes gaggingly powdery on me). Finally, it goes slightly soapy, though not in a bad way. I went to bed with it still on my arm and it's detectable eight hours later as a "sweet clean skin" scent. This is a great scent. It's just not MY great scent.

Aizen-Myoo, aka "Yuzu Out The Wazoo," knocked my nose out with its dominant note when I opened the vial. I used to love my yuzu incense from Wildberry, so I'm familiar with that scent, though not with kaki or mikan. This was yuzu to the point of bitter - yuzu pith? does yuzu have pith? - but backed by something sweet and fruity. On me: Bright, bitter cherry cough syrup. It absolutely refused to sweeten out or mellow, and developed an undertone reminiscent of sharp sweat. On the one hand, this is the first bPal scent that hasn't gone to powder within the hour on me. On the other hand... it hurt my nose. Sharp, complex, and bright, but too acrid and strong on my skin. This would be a GREAT room scent for me, though.

I don't understand how previous reviewers found this scent lemony or tea-like; the jasmine was overwhelming. It died down after a while, but not enough to make me want to wear this again. I'll make a break for Shanghai right after you.

I picked 13 as the first imp to try out of the six-pack of testers I got from eBay. Not only do I have high hopes for this imp, but it's my first BPAL scent *ever.* In the vial, it smells bizarre and fantastic. White chocolate and tea, with a very pushy bright yellow middle note, like a muddled citrusy-floral, and a bit of tang. I slather it on one wrist and rub briskly. Chocolate.. chocolate... fading. Getting powdery and sweet. Very sweet. Er... extremely sweet. Almost sickeningly so. Hello? It's trying to be a nice light floral-food scent. I can tell it's trying. But each second spent soaking into my skin rapidly devolves the scent into something more like decayed flowers with a candy coating that won't melt on your hands. Chocolate and tea notes are completely gone; there's nothing crisp left in the scent. It's mushy and puddled and overblown. I - I have no idea what I'm smelling now, other than "sickeningly sweet," with an emphasis on sickening; after an hour I'm almost queasy. Begone, foul stank! No luck in this one for me. May my next imp love my skin! Ironically, six hours later there's a whiff of chocolate back on my arm. Too little, too late.