Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Let’s clear out the draft folder, shall we? It’s not feasible for me to keep comparing BPAL fragrances but thought I’d publish this post anyway.

Golden Priapus – on me, too pine-ish! It gets beautiful, golden, radiant and sweet but more so on my male friend. The pine is not so prominent on him and it’s even sweeter on his skin. Girlie but still masculine! It’s lovely.

Carceri D’Invenzioni – smells pretty much the same on me as it does on fellow. Initially, there is more throw on me and seems to be slightly nicer on me though the notes suggest that it is really more masculine.

C. Auguste Dupin – nice and the leather is a fresh one, but I can’t really smell the lime anymore – could more when the decant was fresh. More pronounced on fellow but still no hint of the lime. It’s not actually as nice as I thought it would be on him.

Galvanic Goggles – fellow says it’s too soapy on him, I say it’s a little too stereotypically ‘male’ on me but I really like it (didn’t think I would, to be honest). I think it’s the balsam that makes it soapy, personally.

Stimulating Sassafras Strengthener – more vanillary on fellow than it is on me – I get sassafras immediately and it sticks around. This is made to resemble one of those old-world cure-all tonics and it does a good job!

Severin – wow, I thought this would be awesome (what with tea and leather) but it’s far too subtle. On both of us, it’s lemon and a tiny bit of black tea. Pout.

Again, I have had the pleasure of testing more BPAL goodness on a member of the opposite sex. I apologise in advance if this sort of thing is not to your liking; I suspect there will be more such posts so if this doesn’t interest you, hop along and go and read a good book!
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I recently made the choice to stop supporting Possets Perfumes in favour of those by Blooddrop Clothing & Fineries. I like Possets, but the fragrances are not different enough from each other, and Astrid from Blooddrop is just lovely.

There’s a new collection at the moment called ‘The Entomology of Miss Amnesty Mapleleaf’, much to the disappointment of my bank account. The collection is inspired by insects. It inspired a very child-like nostalgia in me, and reminded me of this park I used to frequent as a young one in outer London near my first primary school. Children would be taken there after school in summertime and we’d catch tadpoles and chase butterflies and other such delights.

I thought I might list my impressions of the fragrances I got from said collection for your delectation.

Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)

A bouquet of nectar filled blossoms; honeysuckle, lilac, apple blossoms, gardenia and a basket full of honeyed strawberries.

Gardenia, I’m sure I’ve said, is one of my favourite scents ever. So, when I saw this had it, I had to get it. This is a nice, fizzy floral – the strawberry is not one of those horrendous artificial ones, but very similar to what a not-yet-ripened strawberry tastes like. It reminds me a little of Rob’s ‘strawbeery’ (strawberry beer! yum). It’s a light, summery scent and has a touch of flirtiness about it despite being innocent too. I’m back in my uncle’s English country garden picking his fruit and eating it unwashed (gasp!)! Rebellious, I know.

Inchworm (Inchworms are the caterpillars of geometer moths or Geometridae such as the Common Pink-barred, Rhodostrophia vibicaria)

Fuzzy, wee and charming. A blend of two ambers, daffodils, neroli, green tea, gentle rose petals and white jasmine blossoms.

Ah yes, and I’m a jasmine slut too. Again, daffodils for me equal bulb purchasing at my English primary school, so the childhood nostalgia comes back. This scent is a beautiful, baby powderish sort – very, very girlie (I don’t think I’m particularly super-girlie) and feminine, and comforting. Probably my favourite out of Part I of this collection. I get that ‘innocent but flirty’ vibe again too. Perfect for inducing a soporific state.

Ladybug (Coccinella septempunctata)

Crawling across fresh washed linens hanging on the line with the air filled of peonies and the strawberry garden.

This has a sweeter, less soapy peony than I’m used to (and that which I prefer). Much less strawberry in this one than Honey Bee. It does indeed remind me of freshly washed bedsheets flapping in the breeze, but not so much of ladybirds. It’s so evocative of my childhood in England again – I used to live below a forest and our backgarden was right next door to it. Hunting ladybirds was definitely a favourite pastime!

Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus)

Velvety wings, warm sunshine and feelers covered with sugared nectars. Magnolia, sunflowers, heliotrope and the air of warm and sugary-hued resins.

The magnolia and heliotrope attracted me to this! It makes perfect sense to use heliotrope if you want to convey sun and warmth – it is a very ‘sunny’ scent (I’m reminded of Et Lux Fuit by BPAL). This scent is the most sugary out of the ones in this lot that I own – not at all as floral as the above. Probably my least favourite too – perhaps because it’s the least evocative for me?

The next ones are not part of Miss Mapleleaf’s adventures so to speak but review-worthy nevertheless.

Les Innocents (Autumn 2008) – it’s not morbid, but autumn is my favourite season. Probably because in Melbourne we still get a bit of warmth, and also because the city, and more fondly, my old university, looks gorgeous in autumn. The city frequenters also pull out their stylish, warm clothes. Oh yes.

Les Innocents – (Cemetery of the Innocents, Paris, France) A funeral dowry: sandalwood, whitened Egyptian musk, Shea, lotus and white carnation.

It doesn’t smell particularly funereal to me – actually quite flirty. Like it should be innocent but has potential to be naughty. Definitely a nighttime scent. What most attracted me to this scent was the sandalwood, whitened musk and lotus.

Merci 28 – it’s tradition that Astrid (the person behind Blooddrop) often include a bottle of Merci with orders, and you never know what vintage you’ll get and fragrance notes are never listed, though one can guess at them. A lot of the ones I’ve previously received have been very fruity and not really to my taste. The present one is fruity in a fizzy way, with a hint of saffron? I’m hopeless at guessing the notes! The saffron-type scent gives way to a green one, similar to cut grass.

I had the good fortune yesterday to test some wonderful BPAL on a good male friend who happily donated an arm, behind the ears and neck all to the cause of olfactory science.

I thought it best to document how the various fragrances differed on both of us.

Tristran – more colognesque on male than on me, but it’s grown on me: initially on my skin it was gently scented candlewax. I remarked that I think Tristran on my male friend smells like his natural scent but amplified. It’s gorgeous.

Ichabod Crane – probably my least favourite out of all tested, and also the first. The pimento is too strong. There is more fragrant candlewax evident on male friend than on my own skin. Tested behind his ear. It never really settled.

The Parliament of Monsters – I’ve tested this on M before and it’s been nice and opiumesque. It has developed into a much sweeter opium on me, but on male subject I swear I smell blackcurrant. Far more intoxicating on male than on me!

Red Phoenix – oddly, more masculine on me (I’m female, by the way) than on male friend. The tobacco smoke is more evident on my skin. A little sweeter on male than on my skin. Quite strong throw.

Snake Oil – this is the aged stuff! We’re talking over a year old! A savoury musk on my skin, much sweeter on male friend. Again, has that intoxicating quality on male. Very seductive! Generally, on both of us, very strong throw.

A lot more of my BPALs smell nicer to my nose since recent medication change – amazing to think that such things can alter it significantly, but I remain adamant that it does. Cheers to my willing male test subject too. I have a few more put aside for testing on a male.

Got some Villainess decants – I don’t think these are available on the actual Villainess website? Anyway, impressions as follows:

Masala – as the name suggests, very (south Asian) Indian-inspired. Initially, it smells like chai (which I happen to think is glorious). This would make a fantastic room fragrance – it’s very sensual and evocative. Once it dries down, it doesn’t smell so much of chai but a burnt liquorice (this is the anise coming through). The only note I cannot detect is the dark cocoa – this fragrance is not as sweet as the notes might make it sound, or indeed, as sweet as chai which I understand is traditionally brewed with condensed milk.

Smoky, single-estate keemun tea liberally spiced with cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, ginger and aniseed, softened with milk, and barely sweetened with dark cocoa.

Kill-Switch – Mmm, I love plum-based fragrances. The cherry cognac in this smells a little artificial to my nose. There’s definitely something salty but I wouldn’t say it’s sweat – it reminds me a bit of saltwater taffy, perhaps? No amber whatsoever.

Dark, resinous amber, black plum and black musk with a little spike of cherry cognac, and a drop of salty sweat.

Xia – sweet and smoky, very alluring. Gah, why are these blends so sophisticated! I thought I detected some clove at the very beginning. It could be black pepper though. I thought this would be suited to the warmer weather because of the orchid but it’s quite an evening/autumnal blend.

Voluptuous orchid and black vanilla stained with blackberry juice, flecked with black pepper, and sprinkled with dry, bitter cocoa. An exercise is dark decadence, grounded by sandalwood drenched in amber.

Sigh, I can’t believe it took me so long to give my thoughts on three fragrances. Oh well!

No more hoarding! Much more testing! Says I from quite some time ago, in happier but more fecked-up times.

Again, non-olfactory orgasm addicts, tune out now.
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A while back I got some fragrance oils from a company called Blooddrop.

They are nothing short of stunning, and sadly, many were limited edition. A few did get kept on, I noticed. As always, I’m most fond of the non-foody ones, though a few foody ones snuck in to charm my pants off me.

Some impressions follow. Some of you may choose to tune out at this stage… *grin*
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Okay, here we go. Lost the last post with such a title – it was probably due to the fact that my blog has been migrated to an external server. End of an era, lads and ladies: my blog is no longer housed on a server that lives under a sink! At least, this is my understanding.

Villainess fragrances. Got decants, am testing! Not all of them arrived, but I can test what has come to me in the meantime!
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Again, reading Karen’s Makeup and Beauty Blog, I stumbled across an excellent article about how pleasing scents apparently grant us better sleep. The article is here.

Perhaps that was why I slept so wonderfully when I was wearing BPAL Alice to bed at the beginning of the year? BPAL Oneiroi, which had a lot of lavender used to knock me out good and proper but then it stopped working.

I’m sure the article will be of interest to big sis *grin* (it justifies our BPAL habit, hahaha!).

We’re a vain lot. I remember reading in a fantastic book about Helena Rubenstein and Estee Lauder called War Paint by Lindy Woodhead (published by Virago) that makeup is financial-depression-proof. Yep, sales of makeup does not diminish in times of financial depression or recession.

Karen at Makeup and Beauty Blog reiterates this interesting fact and includes a link to the NY Times’ list of forty-one desirable lippies!

If you need help choosing a cruelty-free one, please ask me! Off the top of my head, I’d avoid: Rimmel, Sally Hansen, YSL. I can’t recall if Calvin Klein is included (I suspect it might be).

Supposedly the first day of summer in Australia, when I started testing these. Still the first week.

It’s been pretty bloody cold, not that I mind. I rather detest the hot weather, as does my newly shorn head (it burns!).

I found a metal box with some Midsummer Muse decants I’d not tested. Whoops.

So broke them out.
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This is going to make no earthly sense to anyone but big sis and CL so the rest of you might want to skip this entry.
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Got this quite a while ago from CL but haven’t had the time to properly unwrap and investigate…I did, however, promise to take pictures and brag about how wonderful everything is, hee hee.

Plus my posts are so texty.
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I’ve been a bit neglectful of the whole olfactory pleasures of late…

And naturally, I’m up after having slept some weird hours, so thought I would test my ‘I Smell Good’ decants. I don’t really know much about this company, but thought I’d give the decants a shot because someone was running a circle for them.
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I’m actually revelling in the fact that I have nothing to do on a Saturday night and just spent most of the day in bed being lulled to sleep by Anner Bylsma’s recording of the complete Bach cello suites…oh my god, can you spell bliss? I need to add more of my classical music to our home server. I specifically ripped the cello suites for Rob (he’s a cellist) as we were having a discussion about the different recordings available (he likes Pablo Casals’ version which I’ve only heard bits and pieces of).
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It’s about ten to two in the morning, on Tuesday and I’m up listening to music (at the moment, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is playing – great artist), reading Frank Beddor’s Seeing Redd, the second in ‘The Looking Glass Wars’ trilogy, and testing various BPAL fragrances from the Poe collection (fragrances all based on a short story by Poe).

(NB. I did try to shorten this so you had to click on ‘read more’ because the entry is so long, but it’s not working for some reason – my apologies)

The weekend was really nice – my friend from Ballarat came down to visit and we did a spot of shopping before we came back to my place. We went to one of Melbourne’s favourite boutique tea shops – she bought Marrakech tea (Moroccan mint tea) and I bought Turkish cherry tisane, which I am now drinking, yum! We then bought sushi and doughnuts (I know, an unlikely combination!) for lunch and afters, then returned to my place to watch The Tudors, getting through two episodes before she had to leave. I don’t get to see C often, and it was nice to be able to enjoy her company properly. We giggled and made history nerd comments all throughout The Tudors (though I’m a lit nerd, and she’s a history nerd proper, having done her Honours in history).

Then on Sunday, I got to watch my housemate Rob brew two different types of beer. He put on a stellar demonstration for any member of the Engineering Music Society at Melbourne Uni (of which he is a member) to come and watch. It was big fun. Naturally we got to drink a lot of beer (there is a brown ale, and an amber ale on tap at present). The brews he made were a Monteith Black clone, and a Munich dunkel. For lunch we ate awesome gourmet burgers, and for dinner some pizza. Healthy, hee hee. It was a great day, it’s always fun to watch Rob brewing these concoctions in these big-arse pots, haha.

Then today, not so much. Spent the whole day sleeping pretty much, ran out of medication (whoops. That’s bad, the withdrawal on this stuff is supposed to be bad). But did wake up to a nice surprise – Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab has two new acts for its Carnaval Diabolique! The Carnaval is a limited edition run, and will be disappearing at the end of Sept 2008. The only one that really jumped out at me was Tabula Smaragdina though Pickled Imp also sounds awesome. I may get The Grindhouse and Dionysia too. There were perhaps 2-3 ‘maybes’ but they had notes that sort of sounded like they would not work on me. I’ll be interested to hear what The Fragrant Elf thinks of this massive BPAL update – by the way, welcome home dear! Sorry about your car, though *growls at errant driver*.

It’s been eons since I did a beauty-related post, probably because I haven’t cared that much about it lately (you should see my hair, it’s all matted at the back because I haven’t brushed it for a few days. I just don’t care at the moment).

But I’m inspired by my friend The Fragrant Elf to do a brief fragrance diary entry, especially as that’s all that’s kept me from being super-sad the last few weeks, just testing these little sample vial-beauties.

And in case you’re wondering, I’m drinking a Cooper’s Pale Ale clone which is just divine in this heat. Such a thirst quencher.

Arcana Layering Note in Chocolate – this smells exactly like high-grade melted dark chocolate, absolutely delicious! The throw is amazing, as is the staying power. Might need a bottle of this stuff.

Arcana Layering Note in Patchouli – smells exactly like freshly turned earth, not really my sort of thing but very interesting nevertheless. I’m quite surprised because patchouli doesn’t usually smell like that. Doesn’t have that typical hippy incense smell most people would be familiar with.

Arcana Layering Note in Smoked Vanilla – oh my gosh, this is really sexy. It’s a stronger version of The Body Shop’s Vanilla perfume oil they used to do ages ago, not sure if they still do it.

Arcana Layering Note in Sandalwood – this is a gentle, subdued sandalwood, smells very true and not spicy like sandalwood incense, it actually smells like the wood. I wish this were a bit stronger and had more throw. Very, very nice, and would be quite suitable on a male too. In fact, I imagine it would smell really nice on a bloke.

Arcana Layering Note in Egyptian Sandalwood – a completely different beast altogether from the above, it smells like sandalwood mixed with lemon and rose-flavoured Turkish delight. Yum! It’s a much fresher, less woody version of sandalwood proper.

Enough Arcana, let’s move on to Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab and some from the Hallowe’en collection…

BPAL The Chilling Cellar – this is supposed to smell of wine about to turn into vinegar and I don’t really get that so much because it’s too sweet which I don’t mind because I rather like sweet wine but not sure that was what the perfumer had in mind when she made the fragrance?

BPAL The Perilous Parlour – so I spell it the British way…this is supposed to be vanilla and pear. It’s very, very foody, smelling of white cake vanilla and juicy, nearly overripe pears. Very girlie! I’m actually surprised I loved it because I tend to prefer floral blends.

BPAL White Phoenix – finally I get my floral fix! This is supposed to have magnolia and frangipani but to be honest I don’t really detect either of those, just nice soapy clean florals. It could be the white sandalwood that is making it seem so clean not heady floral like frangipani and magnolia usually are (I am all for the heady florals! Actually, I call them the sex florals!)

BPAL The Lurid Library – smells like a mild male cologne. At first I didn’t really like this because of that, but it did end up smelling all old-world refined, very difficult to explain, but reminded me of aromatic candlewax and old books. I don’t get the incense tinge this is supposed to have. I wouldn’t wear this as a fragrance.

I guess that’s enough prattling on about fragrances, though I should do posts like this more often I think.

Yea, people have started tagging me back in regards to the quiz thingy I had up the other day.

Only one more entry of NaBloPoMo now!

Yes, I’ve run out of steam, could be to do with the fact that when I got home from work I was greeted by a lady and her screaming baby. Lucky I finished work early today (though they did ask me to stay back again…but must think of my health even if the money is tempting). Speaking of work, I got my first paycheck and wow, I’m richer than I’ve ever been in a loooooong time.

I started testing fragrances at work and discovered one that is absolutely divine – it’s actually one I’ve tested before (I have a pouch of imps (that’s what BPAL call samples, short for ‘imp’s ears’) that need retesting and I take them along with me wherever I go, particularly my parents’ place).

Anyway, the one I tried that really tickled my fancy was Alice. Description as follows:

Milk and honey with rose, carnation and bergamot.

In case you’re wondering, it’s named after Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I need a bottle desperately! Am thinking it will be a nice sleep blend (I have a few I rotate wearing to bed because they’re so relaxing and as well as helping me sleep they make me smell nice! Win-win sitch, innit?).

Someone pinched part of my blog post for this day and posted it here. Well, kind of pinched and kind of credited. It looks like a spam blog. I don’t get why they would want to do that…bizarre. As far as I can see the blog isn’t about food but just indexes posts that mention certain types of food. Weird.

Have almost finished The Scent Trail by Celia Lyttelton. Am up to the ambergris chapter and I have to say, ambergris sounds gross. Especially when it has squid beaks floating around in it (I didn’t even know squids have beaks!). Apparently, sperm whales swallow squid whole because they’re so soft but often end up throwing up the beak (!) encased in some yucky viscous semi-solid thing called ambergris. The beak is extremely sharp and doesn’t break down in the sperm whale’s belly. Usually ambergris washes up on the beach but it can be obtained by (perish the thought) harpooning the poor beast. Ambergris is still fairly rare and smells like musk or something, though apparently it isn’t nice by itself and augments other smells in fragrances, I believe it’s used as a fixative. It looks like pumice stone too. This is all information I got from Lyttelton’s book, but you can read more about ambergris on (where else?!) beloved Wikipedia.

Lyttelton also talked about civet cats and how their anal glands used to be milked for musk (ugh, poor things!) which is now thankfully outlawed. Even worse, the cats where first enraged because they produced more of the substance! God, humans are a cruel lot for vanity’s sake.

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Such a nothing day yesterday, though I finished watching the rest of Believe Nothing (highly recommended) and then watched Dr Strangelove for the first time. It wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be.

I also tested another fragrance called Smut. Let me rustle around for a description…

What a great freakin’ word. BPAL LOVES TEH SMUT! Three swarthy, smutty musks sweetened with sugar and woozy with dark booze notes.

According to the housie, I smelt like musk sticks, you know the yummy pink confectionery? But it’s much nicer than that.

Not much else to report on this end, though I think I might have forgotten to take my happy pill yesterday. Whoops.

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