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I have always adored bergamot tea
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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
(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.
no subject
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?