I have always adored bergamot tea

[sovay]

In which I BPAL, because I'm curious.

(Cut for Hecate, because that's what I tried first.)

You must understand that normally I'm allergic to perfume: my eyes prickle, my throat closes up, and it is bad. I've had to walk out of rooms because people in them are wearing particularly insistent perfumes. A friend of mine in middle school once playfully shpritzed me in the face with her favorite scent, unconvinced that my allergies were anything more than a pseudo-scientific excuse for a dislike, and had to watch me wash my eyes out and blow my nose for hours afterward. I am therefore automatically biased toward the geniuses behind the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, because I put one of their perfumes on my wrist, sniffed experimentally at it, and half an hour later I still don't appear to have any trouble breathing. This is cool.

Whether I would really wear these perfumes is another matter. For the aforementioned reasons, I don't even use scented soap; I'm not used to smelling like anything other than me and my shampoo, and I'm not convinced that my nose (not to mention my bronchial tubes) wouldn't rebel if I were suddenly to plunge into a world of freewheeling aromatic experimentation. But we'll see.

Description*
Magnificent three-faced Goddess of Magic, the Dark Moon and the Crossroads. She is the Mother of Witches, and the midnight baying of hounds is her paean. Her compassion is evidenced in her role as Psychopomp for Persephone, and her wrath manifests as Medea's revenge. Deep, buttery almond layered over myrrh and dark musk.

*I stole my analysis template from rushthatspeaks. Plagiarism is the highest form . . .

Vial
I need a better scent-vocabulary. The oil registers as sharp and flowery, and that's about as specific as I'll be able to manage until I have some basis for comparison: I can't tell the myrrh from the musk. Still, I'm not sure I'd recognize this scent as crossroads and underworld. Over-enthusiastic cathedral censers, maybe, and I believe that's rather the polar opposite of the intent here.

Wet
Okay, whoa, hold it. Is this that skin-chemistry effect I have read about? It's gone all sweet. As in, honey-sugar and bakeries. This must be the almond. And the butter. Damn. My wrist is made out of marzipan.

Drydown
Er . . . the sweet is gone. Or the sweet has mostly vanished, such that I need to inhale to find it underneath the sharp and flowery, which has likewise become dryer and more spicy; pressed flowers rather than picked ones. I have randomly decided this is the myrrh. Could someone who actually knows about perfumes give me a hand here?

Later
Okay, the sweet came back, although much more softly. It's less identifiable as almond, and no longer cloying, but the predominant flavor is still sweet and cloudy rather than spice and somber. If the combination is meant to suggest a rich darkness, that's not what happens on me. This is a murky scent, at best. It sort of climbed up into my nose and clings there. I don't dislike it, but I think I'll hold out for something more vivid.

Hm. Forty-five minutes. For a seduction, I think that was a record.

Comments

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Yay it didn't set off your allergies yay!

Myrrh is in fact dry and spicy; those are the two words I generally use to try to describe it to people. Musk... okay, there are many, many, many varieties of musk, and some of them do different things. But dark musk, which is what you've got in this one, is probably what's giving you the 'cloudy' effect. Scarily knowledgeable perfume-types (which I'm not, but I'm masquerading as one for a minute here) say that there are three layers to each scent: there's the top note, which is the smell you get first (in this case almond/butter/sugar), the body, which is what you get after the top note gets out of the way (here myrrh), and the undertones, which are a lot like an aftertaste and which are really hard to separate out. Musk is a very common underlayer because it helps tie the upper two together. The variety of musk determines whether you'll be able to smell it by itself. A dark musk has a very indistinct scent by itself, and so all you're getting of it is that cloudy murkiness.

/takes off Scary Perfume Person hat

Isn't skin chemistry-effect weird?

[sovay]

Myrrh is in fact dry and spicy; those are the two words I generally use to try to describe it to people.

I remembered it was a funereal resin and figured it had a better chance of being the spicy rather than the cloudy. Yay, random information gleaned from the New Testament.

there's the top note, which is the smell you get first (in this case almond/butter/sugar), the body, which is what you get after the top note gets out of the way (here myrrh), and the undertones, which are a lot like an aftertaste and which are really hard to separate out.

How many notes are usually involved in a particular scent? Or is that an unanswerable question? Alas, since you are wearing the Scary Perfume Person Hat, you get stuck with it.

Isn't skin chemistry-effect weird?

Yeah. I'm looking at the descriptions of the other oils I have here—wispy linden blossoms, white flowers, and a touch of sweet herbs; violet, lavender, white musk and vetiver; pallid flowers, dusty woods and soft herbs—and I'm a little worried about what I'll smell like next. There's nothing in here to suggest another close encounter of the baked goods, but I'm sure I could turn into a mad florist's if given half a chance.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

My Scary Perfume Person Hat, in case you were wondering, is made of glass and resembles one of those old-fashioned eau de cologne bottles. It is a shame it is only an Internet hat, as I would no doubt wear it everywhere.

Theoretically, every ingredient mixed into a perfume has its own smell, or note. In practice, this is not the case, because they blend into one another. So three layers (top, middle, bottom) as I've used above is the preferred terminology, and there can be as many notes as there are ingredients. (I am sloppy and sometimes use note instead of layer or vice versa.) What BPAL tends to do is list the ingredients in order by layer, starting at the top. So "Deep, buttery almond layered over myrrh and dark musk" means that that is the order you should expect the smells when you inhale.

However, they aren't actually telling you how many individual smells are in the perfume, because that varies according to skin chemistry and is highly individual. On you (and on me) butter + almond = sugar, but we don't know whether they've blended some kind of essence of sugar into the perfume, or whether the sweet is a side-effect. Somebody else might get butter + almond = rum toddy (I've heard of that one). In addition, some people might be able to whiff this on you and say 'oh, the butter and the almond are two separate scents', and others would say 'buttery almond is one scent and I don't get one without the other'.

because I went over the comment limit

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

The process of picking what you'd like to smell like involves figuring out which notes do what on you. For example, on me cherry + any other scent = HELLSPAWN (I have no way of describing this odor except to say that it has hints of cherry cough syrup and ash, with an overtone of rotting vegetable matter), so I do not buy cherry or any other dark fruit. I tried two scents with cherry to determine that, and then went well, I like the smell of cherry on other people and it'll have to stay that way. Roses, on the other hand, like me-- they're very clear and really smell like roses and last a long time, so I get a lot of stuff with rose.

Every scent you wear gives you more of an idea. This one, for example-- you could now look at a description and see 'buttery almonds with an extra dollop of sugar' and decide that you would be mistaken for a bakeshop. Or you could see 'myrrh and a dash of black pepper' and figure that it might be something a little more spicy that you'd like.

Things what generally smell like other things: fruit tends to be, well, fruity, which means it is sweet. Wine/alcohol scents *really do* smell like alcohol, so if you don't like the scent of alcohol in a bottle, don't (although trying to see if the Skin Chemistry Effect turns it into ambrosia is worthwhile). Nuts do quite often go bakeshoppy, but this is not necessarily a bad thing; honey nearly always will, but one of my favorite scents of all time makes me smell like the Bakery Of The Gods, so why not? Cinnamon will either smell great if you are one of the lucky twenty percent and will otherwise be Cinnamon Red Hots. Dragon's Blood is like cinnamon only with the volume turned WAAAAY UP. Amber is like a much less sweet version of honey. Vetiver, which I see you've got in there, is a wood used as a base: a little sharper than musk, woodier-smelling, earthier.

So when I look at the descriptions you've got up there, I think: 'Linden blossoms, white flowers, sweet herbs-- well, I know nothing of linden blossoms, but it's a top note so call it a light floral. White flowers. Tend to be sweet, if we're talking, like, lilies here, or clover, or white rose. Sweet herbs. Hm. This is going to be ethereal, wispy, and probably way too girly for me, but it's worth a try in case the linden turns out lovely.'

'Violet, lavender, white musk and vetiver: violet is an assertive floral, deep and not too sweet, but I can't remember whether it likes me. It's the top note, which means this is a pretty strong scent. Lavender is dried lavender, so it'll be a little musty, and lavender doesn't like me at all: mark this one risky. White musk means the musk will smell very, well, musky, but also blend the violet and lavender a lot, so there's a chance I can wear this anyway; vetiver smells like wood and works on me, so... in conclusion, I'll either really, really like this or really, really hate this, and the wild card is the violet. This will be a very strong, assertive feminine scent, not necessarily sweet, with possible room-clearing qualities, unless they're deliberately toning it down with the lavender.'

'Pallid flowers, dusty woods and soft herbs-- dude, that could be *anything*, so either just blind-test or head over to the forum to see if the nice people over there who play guess-the-note have sussed the ingredients.'

NOTE: THIS IS ME AFTER A YEAR-AND-A-HALF OF OBSESSIVE HOBBYISM. I KNOW MANY PEOPLE WHO GO BY 'SMELLS GOOD' OR 'DOESN'T'. I AM SCARY AND RIGHT NOW I HAVE A LOT OF TIME ON MY HANDS.

Yeah. Shutting up now.

[sovay]

The process of picking what you'd like to smell like involves figuring out which notes do what on you.

I was afraid you'd say that: there's nothing for it but dedicated experimentation. And an immense hope that at no point do I run across some component that triggers my allergies.

At the moment, my highest expectations are for Bluebeard: it sounds foresty and with any luck will not really make me smell like a book of Angela Carter short stories.

For example, on me cherry + any other scent = HELLSPAWN (I have no way of describing this odor except to say that it has hints of cherry cough syrup and ash, with an overtone of rotting vegetable matter), so I do not buy cherry or any other dark fruit.

I remember this. In fact, although I have no reason to believe that our respective skin chemistries in any way resemble one another, your vivid descriptions have made me decidedly wary of cherry-flavored perfumes.

Dragon's Blood is like cinnamon only with the volume turned WAAAAY UP.

I used to have a perfume oil called Dragon's Blood. I never wore it, I have no idea what it smelled like, and I doubt it's still anywhere around the house. Mostly it sat on my shelf in its little hand-labeled vial and looked impressive. But I would like sometime to see—at least according to BPAL—what I was missing.

NOTE: THIS IS ME AFTER A YEAR-AND-A-HALF OF OBSESSIVE HOBBYISM. I KNOW MANY PEOPLE WHO GO BY 'SMELLS GOOD' OR 'DOESN'T'. I AM SCARY AND RIGHT NOW I HAVE A LOT OF TIME ON MY HANDS.

. . . What's wrong with obsessive hobbyism?

[sovay]

Oh, damn.

This is ridiculously cool. I can tell that I am soon going to be trying perfumes just because I like the art. They have Bosch and Fuseli already. How long until they hit the Pre-Raphaelites and I run out of money?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Every time I think they're out of ways to take my money...

May I borrow the hat for a minute?

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

rushthatspeaks does a really god job covering almost everything I know about the subject and some things I don't *scribbles notes* There are a couple things, though, if you ever want to make your own (and you probably will, if any indicators you've given are correct) that are good to remember.

First that different oils have different volatility, and therefore what something (especially something you make yourself) smells like at first may smell very different later, especially if you're using fmously volatile oils like lavendar or peppermint. Some people for whom I've mixed oils have found this out at their peril.

Lavendar oil is a nice thing to just have since it is naturally antiseptic, viral, bacterial, fungal, microbial in general and gentle enough for people to use neat on their skin (if you have very sensitive skin, which I very much do not [a plus for experementing in oil, esp when you pour clove oil in your lap - DO NOT DO THIS]) - lavendar has the side effect of attracting men which may or may not be desired at any given time but should be noted (having taken an unofficial poll boys really do like the smell of it, so if ever I need to finish the brass and cast iron man-trap in the basement, a playstation, hot pockets, and some lavendar oil will serve as bait)... right...

Second, it's important to be very aware of how you smell, how your chosen health & beauty aids smell (which sounds pretty easy in your case) and find something that complements. For me this is, both sadly and expensively, sandalwood oil. This has also been recently thrown into slight confusion by the increasing gender dimorphism that's taking place in deoderants where they reformulated and marketed the baby powder scented Degree (which I had been using since high school) entirely for women and left me with things like "Extreme Blast" to choose from (sadly genetics does not permit me to use non-aluminum versions, even when I was a vegan living next to the only organic food co-op in CT). This takes trial and error and a good sense of smell. I don't much care for my body's scent (nor for that matter the scent of most everyone I've ever met), so finding a way to make myself bearable to myself was a big priority.

Orange is probably the safest fruit oil to work with, scent wise, however, it is also the meanest to your skin. Add orange to almond and a little sweetness, and you will smell like a creamsicle. I have made this mixture for others who have had good things to say about it. I've never really had the courage to use it myself. Orange is pretty good for cutting heavy stuff like myrrh

Dragon's blood is a resin that comes from a palm in (I think) western Africa and is used to make a certain type of ink. People who make witchy charms and stuff use it like a street racer uses Nitrous Oxide. That is to say as much as one can possibly get away with before burning out the whole works.

Yay, all the memories return...

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

It's a weird sort of business, especially since I came into mixing up oils and infusing for witchy purposes, rather than aesthetic ones (at least at first) but with a strong sense of smell and olfactory migrane triggers, there was a pretty steep learning curve.
If you can imagine (he says if) the scents as colors, then you'll do much better with mixing them. I am a rotten painter with most media, but I was a passing watercolorist, so I have to sort of build scents very slowly from very dilute up to strong, otherwise they're crap, all muddy and horrible. As such I almost never do it anymore.

[sovay]

At this point I'm not mixing perfumes so much as attempting to decipher them and determine if I like: but information never does hurt. Thanks!

(having taken an unofficial poll boys really do like the smell of it, so if ever I need to finish the brass and cast iron man-trap in the basement, a playstation, hot pockets, and some lavendar oil will serve as bait)

*snerk*

People who make witchy charms and stuff use it like a street racer uses Nitrous Oxide.

That's also a marvelous line.

[sovay]

It is a shame it is only an Internet hat, as I would no doubt wear it everywhere.

Seriously. It would be a magnificent hat.

In addition, some people might be able to whiff this on you and say 'oh, the butter and the almond are two separate scents', and others would say 'buttery almond is one scent and I don't get one without the other'.

For perhaps the first time in my life, I am feeling rather nasally challenged. I don't recognize most of the scents I'm currently encountering and I'm not entirely certain that I can distinguish properly between all of them in any case. Alas. Either I'll develop sophistication or I'll sneeze a lot.