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Black rose, dried apricot, and black fig.

I bought both the perfume and the hair gloss, because I love Black Rose best of all the roses. And apricot! And fig! That will be sweet and powerful and spicy, I thought.

I was wrong; it went really bitter on me. It had moments of greatness at the beginning but there was a good hour of unpleasantness before it went back to a simple and lovely Black Rose.

I can not tell you how much of a fail this was for me, because I was so sure it would be divine. And BPAL has too many perfect from the get-go scents on me for me to suffer through an hour of nasty.

I am looking forward to reading other reviews, because my skin can be really funky.

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On me this is very Rose and surprisingly green. It's closest to the rose in Rose Red, with a hint of Zombi. There are resemblances to rosewater and carnation too. It takes a good long while for the apricot phase to develop, and that too has more of a romantic perfume feel than a gourmand one. I smell spicy fig leaves but not the fruit. Not at all what I was expecting, but a clean, feminine scent in its own right -- one I think will be beautiful for summer.

 

Edited to add:

Previous review was straight out of the mailbox on a cold day. Given ten days to settle, and worn on a warm day, the apricot and fig are much more recognizable and the whole scent much more to my expectation and liking. It really has a wow factor now.

Edited by Mountaingrrl

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On me, the fig and apricot are the strongest scents, a nice, more mature fruit smell. The rose is present, but not as strong, when went and for a bit after drying. I found the scent to be somewhat quickly dominated by the fig/apricot combo. While it is still a pleasant smell, I wish the rose was more prominent and stayed around longer.

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Because I ran a decant circle, I had the chance to sniff (most) of the perfumes and compare them with (most) of the matching hair glosses. (I don't wear most rose notes or hair gloss myself, so my reviews will be more nose-test and less wear-test.)

 

Huit-the-perfume needed time to rest after the mailbox, or maybe after the stress of its creation. On first decant it was a black and severe rose with bitter, woodsy-green fig behind and no juice at all. After the dregs sat for a week in the bottle and breathed, the fruit came to the foreground and Huit overall became more rounded, balanced between sweet, but not too sweet, apricot in the front, and black-rose-green-figwood in the back.

 

The rose component stays a flat ROSE throughout - kind of a matte rose scent? - but I can see where it would lose dominance to the fruit notes after wear.

 

With Huit-the-hair-gloss, the notes open in a different order and it's much more rose-forward from the start. It smells like rose-toned black Gothic funeral veil. The secondary notes stay woodsy rather than fruity.

 

If you love the notes but the wearing experience isn't what you wanted, you should definitely try layering the two.

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at the beginning, all i get is black rose. a slightly astringent/bitter rose. then i get something kind of green, and it's still bitter and there seems to be something almost citrussy going on. after about 10 minutes i still get no apricot or fig, just a bitter black rose. after 20-30 minutes i get black rose, with maybe a hint of apricot, but this is pretty much black rose single note for me.

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I honestly don't know what black roses smell like. If I had to guess, I'd say dried roses that have been hanging around for a month. The fig and apricot definitely add some sweetness, but I don't feel like the fruit takes over. The fig somehow revives these roses, and makes it smell like they have been pressed up to skin for an hour. This is definitely not for someone whom roses are iffy, and possibly amp.

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This is my second favorite Roses release from this Luper, beaten out by Sept by only just a smidge. On me, this reads as a sweet, spicy, romantic fragrance, absolutely begging to be worn out for date night at a fancy restaurant and then chic wine bar later. And then home for a sultry evening. This is “lady in the streets, freak in the sheets” in a bottle. ;)

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This was the rose I was most excited to try out of the dozen. I need both more fig and more apricot in my life. I ALMOST blind bottled it. Almost.

 

 

Wet: WTF? This smells like none of the listed notes on me. It's earthy, and kind of bitter. No sweet fig, no tart apricot. I don't even get much rose....? I don't know what I am smelling. Something super earthy and a bit green.

 

 

Dry: This goes through many stages, none of them smelling like anything I would have expected. The end stage is a powdery fruity scent that I am having trouble pinning down. I sure don't love it. :( I got a 1oz of the HG in this scent also, hopefully it's better in that format on me.

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I haven't tried a lot of black rose blends, but on me (tested opposite Douze) it is a big, round, realistic rose that did not go sour like tea rose on my skin. I'm not getting the recognizable apricot or fig I was hoping for, just a hint of earthy fruit. It's very pretty, and a really successful rose on me, but ultimately too floral for me to need any more.

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In the imp: black rose. I think out of all roses this might be my least favorite. It's not bad just a bit bitter for me.

 

Wet: Dark bitter rose with an edge like incense.

 

Dry: still mostly black incensey rose, with a whiff of dried apricot that balances the bitter rose a bit.

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I'm digging the bitterness of the black rose juxtiposed with the fruits that are more milky sweet than tart and juicy. It reminds me a bit of the Burt's Bees Baby lotion but with a brooding rose note...like the Woman in Black or a ghost nanny. 

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