BPAL!!!

So it’s that time again…when I could resist no longer ordering a new sample set of six new fragrances.  And also, I had to order an entire bottle of “Hollywood Babylon”, because I ran out of my sample some days ago, and was fairly much in a wicked withdrawal.

So here’s the samples I ordered:

THE ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM
Bronze gears spin inside a polished wooden case, and an entire universe dances within.
Teakwood, oak, black vanilla, and tobacco.

Steampunk, yay!!!

VENICE A complex, voluptuous scent that captures the robust beauty and of the Italian Renaissance: lemon, red currant, wisteria, red rose petals, heady jasmine, Florentine orris root, waterlily, red sandalwood, violet plum, and violet leaf.

LYONESSE
Then rose the King and moved his host by night
And ever pushed Sir Mordred, league by league,
Back to the sunset bound of Lyonesse —
A land of old upheaven from the abyss
By fire, to sink into the abyss again;
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,
And the long mountains ended in a coast
Of ever-shifting sand, and far away
The phantom circle of a moaning sea.

Golden vanilla and gilded musk, stargazer lily, white sandalwood, grey amber, elemi, orris root, ambergris and sea moss.

The vanilla and stargazer lily hooked me with this one.  I love those scents.

MOROCCO
The intoxicating perfume of exotic incenses wafting on warm desert breezes. Arabian spices wind through a blend of warm musk, carnation, red sandalwood and cassia.

BLOOD COUNTESS
Elizabeth Báthory, also called Erzsébet Báthory in Hungarian and Alžbeta Bátoriová-Nádašdy in Slovak, was the Bloody Lady of Hungary. In order to preserve her youth and loveliness, the brutal and incomparably savage countess captured, tortured and slaughtered innumerable young women and bathed in their blood as part of her beauty regimen. Ah, vanity. Corrupted black plum, smoky opium and crumbling dead roses covered by a deceptive veil of Hungarian lilac, white gardenia and wild berry.

Gardenia.  Lilac.  Black plum.  Yum.

SNAKE OIL
By far, our most popular scent! Magnetic, mysterious, and exceedingly sexual in nature. A blend of exotic Indonesian oils sugared with vanilla.

And then, they were kind enough to send me four free samples!!! I’m thrilled.  Here’s what they sent:

MAD HATTER
A gentlemen’s lavender-citron cologne unhinged by the feral pungence of black musk and a paroxysm of pennyroyal.

BLOOD PEARL
Lustrous, sanguine, soft and lavish: soft orris, blood musk, and coconut.

DREAM FORMULA V: SOMNUS
Named after the Roman God of Sleep. This blend helps bring on deep, restful, natural sleep.

And then one called “Hi’iaka”, which I can’t seem to find anywhere on their site.  A true mystery scent, I guess.  If I like this one, I may have just a bit of trouble re-ordering!

The scent tests begin.  First off, I’m wearing “Snake Oil”.  Everyone raves about this one, but in the bottle, I wasn’t too sure.  Kind of woody and sharp.  Not at all what comes to my mind when I consider the name.  However, once I put it on, the sharpness fades immediately to a soft vanilla, candy smell with a hint of something deeper and muskier that I can’t identify.  Still not at all what I would have imagined, based on the name, but nice.  It just may be too sugary for me, though.