Treaty of Thorns

[doomsday_disco]

War of the Roses? Not anymore! After years of fragrant hostilities, BPAL’s Reigning Yule Queens, Snow White and Rose Red, lay down their arms.

 

Two beloved Yule blends are bound together at last: frost-bright petals and deep, blood-warm rose, entwined with winter air and the green snap of freshly cut stems. A hard-won peace, sealed in perfume: cold beauty and velvet warmth.

 

[SmellsPrettyGood2Me]

When David Bowie and Bing Crosby sang The Little Drummer Boy in The Year of Our Lord 1977 AD,  it brought together two classic voices in a brief, but glorious, intersection. So, you can imagine that when I saw two beloved BPAL classics combining forces in a single scent for a limited time only, a mental parallel was drawn. I had to know, would it be just as magical? 

 

Opening the bottle, the photorealistic Rose Red rose we all love is there, strong, vibrant. The green stems are there, too, but there is something a bit...off. I kept sniffing, and those frost bright petals and winter air smell a little rancid. I closed the cap, put the bottle down for a few hours, then picked it up and brought it into another room with less "smell pollution". No difference. Gah! I eyed the label suspiciously, looking for a hint of what may have gone wrong. Of course, there was no visual clue. I drank some water, took a deep breath, and put it on skin.

 

Today was not our day for redemption. That same decay I smelled in the bottle came along for the ride, and despite rose riding hard in the front of the pack, there was a fetidity that was too legit to quit. As the rose faded and the Snow White elements took over it got a bit better, but it never smelled GOOD. I scrubbed it off after two hours with no regrets. 
 

All things being subjective, this pairing was confusingly disappointing to me. I love the individual scents deeply as solo artists, but neither my nose nor my skin could reconcile them as a duet.

Edited January 26 by SmellsPrettyGood2Me
extra space removed

[doomsday_disco]

I could have just blind bottled this, but I decided to go the decant route, since I didn't know how how the Rose Red aspect of this would play on me.

 

I won a bottle of Rose Red 2005 on eBay back in 2014, but I didn't enjoy it as much as some other rose-centric blends in my collection, so I swapped it away for a second back-up bottle of Snakes in the Pumpkin Patch (no regrets).

 

I did, however, end up purchasing Rose Red Hair Gloss when it was first released back in 2014, knowing I would appreciate it more in my hair than on my skin.

 

As for Snow White -- I adore it and own many different vintages of it.

 

Treaty of Thorns starts off heaviest on the Rose Red, but the Snow White component helps to smooth over the rose so that it doesn't have the citrus-like bite I got from the 2005 vintage. As time goes on, the Snow White aspect of the scent grows stronger and eventually casts a blanket of snow over Rose Red's bright red rose note.

 

I'm going to need more of this before it goes away, as I don't have much Pink Snowballs left and enjoy this more than some of the other rose scents mixed with Snow White's sweet snow note that have been released over the past few years.