BPAL!

My first BPAL post!

Chris mentioned a little about Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab in his last post--it's generally a place of awesome. One of my long-time "internet friends" started talking about it a few months ago, and I started looking into it.

AND IT WAS AWESOME.

Again, Chris's posts will likely be far longer than mine when it comes to reviews. Mine are short and to the point. Kind of. :P Let the games begin!


Grog
This be the scent of pirate rum!

In the bottle - Butterscotch. Wonderful, delicious butterscotch. I want to drink it all day.

Dry on skin - Vanilla. All I can smell now is vanilla. It's sort of a waxy vanilla--it actually smells *exactly* like a Vanilla Yankee Candle. It even hits me in the back of the nose/throat in the same way that a Yankee Candle does.

Thoughts: Sad that it doesn't smell like butterscotch on me. :( Vanilla isn't bad, but I'm not a huge fan of Yankee Candle-type vanilla. Although someone did comment that something smelled delicious while I was sitting next to them, I'm not sure if I'll go with this one again. :( Need to find out how it worked out for Chris.

Eat Me
Three white cakes, vanilla, and red and black currants

In bottle: Vanilla. And...fermenting cake, maybe?

Dry on skin: At first it smelled nice and sweet, but I couldn't really identify any particular scents. As it dried more, it seemed to become more like a vanilla or buttercream frosting--cake-like, but sweeter than cake. So frosting it is!

Thoughts: I like how sweet this one smells. I haven't picked up on the scent of the currants at all (not that I actually know what they smell like, but I assume it would be berry-ish?). It's mostly a sugary sweet smell, but not in a sickening way. It's very light, so the sweetness isn't overpowering (although that might have to do with the amount I put on...?). In all, I enjoy this one. If I needed to smell sweet in a cupcake sort of way, I'd pick this scent.


Schrodinger's Cat
A paradoxical scent experiment! - tangerine, sugared lime, pink grapefruit, oakmoss, lavender, zdravetz, and chocolate peppermint.

In the bottle: Lots of scents and tastes swirling around in a vortex of undescrib--LIME! I smell LIME. I WIN.

Dry on skin: The first whiff I caught while it was drying on my skin was bugspray. That...was not what I was expecting. Now that it's dried a little more, it smells sort of warm--I think I'm catching a little bit of vanilla, but it's buried underneath the all-encompassing bugspray smell. My tongue feels slightly tingly after smelling it...hopefully in an hour or so, the smell will begin to calm down and I'll be able to catch more than a kind of citrus-y bugspray scent.

Thoughts: This one faded very fast one me. I put it on around 8AM, and it was almost completely gone by 11AM. The bugspray-smell persisted throughout the entire time that I wore it, although it became weaker as the hours went by. I started smelling more of the lime and less of the "bugspray" towards the end, as well as something vaguely wet and green--possibly the moss? Other than that, I'm still getting the citrus sensation on my tongue when I try to smell it, even though I'm not picking up much in the "scent" department anymore. Actually, now that I think about it, the sensation on my tongue feels just like it does when I have candied orange peels. So I think the sugared lime is dead-on. Fascinating scent, but not one that works for me. It's also the one that's been absorbed/negated by my skin the fastest. I wonder if this will turn out to be the case with other ones I try that have some of the same notes...

Bliss
Pure milk chocolate.

In the bottle: Chocolate, but strange. Sort of a sour chocolate (although I also think there might be a leak in this bottle--so something else might be giving it the sour smell).

Dry on Skin: It really does smell like chocolate!

Thoughts: It smells very yummy. It's a nice light chocolate scent--I don't feel like my nose is being assulted by chocolate syrup. Just calm and sweet and chocolatey. If I have an occasion where I need to smell like chocolate, I think this will be the go-to scent!


Calico Jack
Sea air, driftwood, waterlogged kelp, and the memory of plundered spices sprayed over worn leathers, rough musk, and the salty wooden floorboards of the Revenge.

In bottle: A very strong smell--I couldn't pick out anything in particular, except maybe for something kind of old and wooden. It's not unpleasant, although it's kind of jarring.

Dry on Skin: Something woody, but I can't quite place it. The scent hits me right in the back of my throat and makes it feel cool. There's also something slightly musty about the scent. Or maybe "dusty"? I'm getting a slight headache now from smelling my wrist so much. :P And maybe I'm crazy, but I think I smell rose. I only notice it if I sniff my skin and the scent lingers for the next couple of breaths. At the end, I can almost swear I smell roses.

Thoughts: It's an interesting scent, and it seems to stick around quite well. Unfortunately, there's something about it that gives me a headache. I don't think it's one that I'll really be able to use again. It also doesn't strike me as very pirate-y, although there's a definite "wood" smell to it.


Miskatonic University
The scent of Irish coffee, dusty tomes and polished oakwood halls.

In Bottle: Strong coffee and butterscotch. Or maybe super-sweetened coffee with LOTS of sugar and cream.

Dry on Skin: On initial application, the smell is strong like coffee and butterscotch. It's awesome. <3 After it's dried down a little, I could smell the coffee and sweet delicious irish cream, but I started getting a tickle in the back of my throat--like dust. After another few minutes, I coulld faintly smell dust and something "flat", sort of like wooden boards. Within 20 minutes of putting it on, the dusty book and wooden plank smell has moved to the foreground, with a slight hint of irish coffee in the background. Come back, my wonderful coffee...!! :( 5 hours later--my right wrist smells like sweet sugared coffee. My left wrist smells like dusty tomes. Best body chemistry ever? :P

Thoughts: I love the smell in the bottle. I don't like the taste of coffee, but I love the smell of it--and this smells like the perfect coffee. I'm not a big fan of the dusty scent, though...although I feel like this is something that would work out really well if I was pretending to be an old bookstore owner. Like the guy in Neverending Story--I bet he smelled like this. While I don't really like the smell on myself, I sort of want to experiment with it on different objects--if less of the dusty smell shows up, I might just buy a bottle of this to put on things. :3


Vice
A deep chocolate scent, with black cherry and orange blossom.

In the bottle - Could definitely smell the cherry, along with something sort of floral (probably the orange blossom). Didn't catch any chocolate.

Dry on skin - Kind of powdery, light berry scent. Something artificial beneath it all...it began fading pretty quickly.

Thoughts: At first I was thinking play-dough, but then I figured out what it was: The scent does bring me back to my childhood, but not to play-dough. It smells like a doll that I had once (I can't remember its name). I think the one I had smelled like Cherry. My sister had one that smelled like blueberry. And I think my other sister had one that was strawberry? But it smells the way they smelled--lightly scented, somewhat powdery berry on plastic. Not a bad plastic, but maybe it's just more of an "artificial" tang more than plastic. But it really reminds me of the scent of that old doll. Huh. I never caught any hints of chocolate, but Chris thought it smelled rather like cherries and chocolate on me.