Effective as of March 17, 2011, Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs has discontinued the following scent:
I believe I have an imp of Silk Road kicking around somewhere but have yet to try it. Shame that the string of discontinuations doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all.
People hunt down bottles of Bal à Versailles to see what it smells like. I have to say some of these people probably do it because they’re curious about the perfume Michael Jackson wore. Hard to blame them for being curious, but amongst some of the more popular opinions include, “This doesn’t smell like how I’d imagine Michael Jackson would smell like” and “This smells weird”.
Bal à Versailles
In Bottle: It opens as an aromatic animalic. Love how that rolls off the tongue. Rosemary is prominent at first, followed by a very light dust of florals that are accompanied by a dark animalic undertone.
Applied: Get used to that dark animalic undertone as it will accompany you on your olfactory quest. The rosemary is quick to open up and for me, the rosemary stuck around in the top notes and fled as the mid-stage introduces a very classic smelling floral. Powder and flowers, sultry, dark, sensual. The florals are joined by a smooth series of woods that keep this fragrance somewhat unisex. This is a masquerade party in the form of a perfume. It’s classic, it’s sensual, but it’s not afraid to be elegant either. It’s a deeply complex little journey as the mid-stage slowly gets more and more sultry on entering the final round of its very interesting existence. The end stage is a mix of warm amber, smooth woods, and sensual musk.
Extra: Bal à Versailles was released in 1962 and ever since a certain King of Pop adopted it as one of his favorite perfumes, it has been known to many of his fans as, “That perfume Michael Jackson liked, but I don’t”. For the rest of us, Bal à Versailles is a beautiful piece of complex nose art.
Design: I like the shape of the bottle, very vintage looking. It’s beautifully designed and beautifully presented. I’m even okay with the Rococo-style painting on the bottle which at first glance seems out of place, but grew on me. It’s Rococo, how can I lose? For someone who doesn’t usually get on board with things like this, Bal à Versailles played just the right amount of right to make the design work. Not to mention the look of this bottle is so easy to recognize anywhere.
Fragrance Family: Oriental
Notes: Rosemary, orange blossom, mandarin orange, cassia, jasmine, rose, neroli, bergamot, bulgarian rose, lemon, sandalwood, patchouli, lilac, orris root, vetiver, ylang-ylang, lily-of-the-valley, tolu balsam, amber, musk, benzoin, civet, vanilla, cedar, resins.
Now, bear in mind that Bal à Versailles is not the most accessible fragrance out there in terms of going to a department store, slapping some money on the counter and saying, “I’ll have the usual, Tom”. I wish ordering perfume was like that. Anyway, Bal à Versailles is not as hard to find as one might think. It’s not everywhere like Britney Spears Fantasy, but it’s not squirreled away in an obscure niche like–heh–Bruce Willis Cologne either. You can easily find Bal à Versailles on discounter sites and some department stores. I recommend anyone interesting in fragrance to give it a sniff. And if you were wondering what one of Michael Jackson’s favorite perfumes smells like, well, there you go.
Reviewed in This Post: Bal à Versailles, 2003, Eau de Toilette.
Floris is one of those crazy-old houses that no body thinks is really that old. But it is. I attribute this misconception to most people not knowing about the House of Floris. But tune your noses to receive because they’ve got some beautiful stuff out there.
China Rose
In Bottle: Sweet, warm roses with a fruity header and a delicate note of some non-rose floral that balances out the opening.
Applied: China Rose, I think, is a very well-balanced fragrance from the top to the bottom. It starts off with a nice fruity rose note and as the fruits fade you get more rose. This isn’t modern, cleaned up, scrubbed rose, but a more sensual rose of times past that isn’t afraid to get her elbows a little dirty. The clove in China Rose gives the fragrance a spicy, sultry, irresistible charm. This is an oriental rose fragrance, a light one that will hold close to your skin and remain a rose fragrance until its dry down where the rose gives way to the stronger, warmer, clove and spices that dominate the remainder of the fragrance.
Extra: Floris was established in 1730–yes, the 1700s. As far as I’m concerned they are among one of the oldest surviving fragrance houses out there and they are still pumping out beautiful fragrances almost three hundred years later. Keep rocking, Floris.
Design: China Rose isn’t bottled in any special way that sets it apart from the usual Floris bottles. It’s a glass bottle, looks a bit old-fashioned and plain, but suits the purpose just fine. The label is a soft, deep pink bearing the name of the fragrance house and the fragrance name. The fragrance house name is also etched into the cap of the bottle.
Fragrance Family: Spicy Floral
Notes: Raspberry, peach, rose, violet, cloves, geranium, patchouli, amber, tonka, vanilla, vetiver.
Floris tends to do these delicate, soft, intimate fragrances that don’t project or shout their presence and for someone who enjoys going light as much as I do, their perfumes are beautifully balanced with just the right amount of sillage and longevity.
Reviewed in This Post: China Rose, 2008, Eau de Toilette.
Escada’s fragrances have never struck much of a chord with me. The ones that are popular are pretty generic, the more obscure ones are just not my thing. So here comes another generic!
Island Kiss
In Bottle: Island Kiss starts off predictably enough with a fruity blast up my nose of clean tropical mango and other girly sweet fruits.
Applied: There’s a slight layer of sweet white florals in the opening that I’m detecting on me along with the fruits. I smell the fruits the most though with mango making the biggest splash followed by a sweet peachy note. Most Escada fragrances tend to go like this, big fruity openings evolving into bland floral mid-stages and going on some sheer note like white musk or sandalwood. And from the looks of things, Island Kiss will continue the tradition. The mango and sweet fruity opening of the fragrance leads way to an equally sweet floral mid-stage that’s a bit better than Marine Groove in terms of strength but it’s still quite benign, quite easy to wear, and when Island Kiss reaches its dry down the same sheer ending is waiting for me in a cleaned up sandalwood and sharp white musk. Aside from Island Kiss having some more fruits up in the opening with a hint of floral layering, there’s not a whole lot to set this fragrance apart from Marine Groove or any of the other fruity florals that Escada’s released. If you want to smell like girly, fruity, fun shampoo, Island Kiss is a good start. It’s clean, it’s modern, it’s easy to wear and it smells like fun.
Extra: Island Kiss was released in 2004 and was supposedly inspired by the Greek islands. Frankly, it is interchangeable with most of Escada’s summer line.
Design: Same bottle shape as the other summer line Escada fragrances. That stretched heart thing with the gradiating color on the glass. In Island Kiss’ case, the gradient goes from blue to a pink base.
Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral
Notes: White florals, magnolia, mango, passion flower, orange, passion fruit, raspberry, white peach, hibiscus, musk, sandalwood.
Island Kiss is one of the better ones from the summer line. That’s not really saying much since choosing between the Escadas in their summer line can pretty much boil down to which top note you want to smell first. You want mango? Island Kiss. You feel like pineapple? Marine Groove. Big on pears? Get Tropical Punch.
Reviewed in This Post: Island Kiss, 2004, Eau de Toilette.
Marine Groove
Ah, Escada, the masters of the simple fruity florals. Their fragrances are generally nice. The perfumes are certainly easy to wear, but I can’t help but notice how almost everything from Escada smells like the same fruity-floral dollop, up to and including Marine Groove.
In Bottle: Big pineapple opening. There’s a lot of pineapple in this. It’s sweet and fruity, very tropical. I’m trying to find the passionfruit that’s supposed to be here but all I get is pineapple.
Applied: Yeah, I don’t know who the notes list is trying to kid but there’s definitely pineapple in this and it’s very big. Marine Groove hits a tropical feel right away with its sweet, fruity opening. I’m not really seeing any other fruits but pineapple here and if there are other fruits, the pineapple’s pretty much got the top tier of the notes pyramid on this cornered. As Marine Groove ages into its mid-stage the pineapple settles down a bit and lets a benign set of jasmine and peony up. The mid-stage is marked with a light and airy floral quality with a coating of sweetness. This isn’t too sweet, just sweet enough to let you know you’re not supposed to take Marine Groove seriously. The dry down is a dull thud of clean, white musk. There’s not a long of longevity with this, or a lot of complexity. The projection on me was fantastic in the opening and then it just dissolves starting from the mid-stage and onward.
Extra: Marine Groove was released in 2009 as a limited edition summer scent. There’s very little to set this fragrance apart from other pineapple dominant scents and if I had to pick between the sweet fruity pineapple in this and the sweet boozy pineapple in Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs’ Rangoon Riptide, Rangoon Riptide would win every time.
Design: Marine Groove’s bottle has the same design as most of Escada’s other bottles. That elongated heart glass bottle with the gradient colors on it. In Marine Groove’s case, we got reddish-purple gradiating into bluish-purple near the base. I still don’t like the way it looks and still think it makes the packaging look like a bottle of shampoo.
Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral
Notes: Passionfruit, peony, jasmine, musk.
Sheer, easy to wear, young, fun, nothing at all to judge in terms of complexity. Marine Groove is a summer scent through and through.
Reviewed in This Post: Marine Groove, 2009, Eau de Toilette.
Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau is the green little flanker from 2009. It’s older sister, Miss Dior Cherie was a smash hit when she debut in 2005. I wrote a review of Miss Dior Cherie almost a year ago and proclaimed my amazement at one of the few perfume headaches I’ve ever gotten. And so, enter her flanker.
Miss Dior Cherie L'Eau
In Bottle: Sweet and flowery with a hint of cleanness. It’s like I’m smelling a bar of too-flowery soap.
Applied: So Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau is a little disappointing in the bottle, does she get any better on the skin? Eh, no, not really. She goes on with that sweet florals thing again, there’s a hint of sharpness to this that makes me think fresh and clean like a shower gel or a bar of soap or something. I’ll commend this for being less sweet than Miss Dior Cherie but there’s not much else to it than a very familiar, but very banal shower gel scent. The mid-stage is marked with a squeaky clean sweet floral blend of white flowers and fruits. The dry down is a floral woodsiness with a dash of sharp white musk for good measure.
Extra: Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau has a good thing going for it if you like weaker perfumes that don’t last very long but can still make you wrinkle your nose. This stuff smells nice, and if you like squeaky clean smells and little else, this is a good bet–just don’t expect it to last very long. The longevity seriously sucks.
Design: Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau is bottled in a similar shape to Miss Dior Cherie but with a taller bottle and a frosted glass-looking bow and cap. It’s still fantastically cute packaging. The juice is also an appeasing shade of yellow-green.
Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral
Notes: Bitter orange, lily, gardenia, woods, musk.
I admit it, I do like this a lot more than Miss Dior Cherie. But the fact that I didn’t get a headache from this probably has something to do with that. In the end though, Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau, is just not special. She smells like a great deal of other things out there and there isn’t much to set her apart. The bottle sure looks cute though!
Reviewed in This Post: Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau, 2009, Eau de Toilette.
Houbigant is one of those old perfume houses that made the early 1900s the romantic, complex perfume era that it was. Their fragrance, Raffinée was released in 1982. It was a strong contender in the time of the oriental perfumes.
In Bottle: Opens up with spicy and sweet carnation. I love it when carnation is done right and that’s when there’s a little bit of sweetness thrown in there to calm the flower down. I’m delighted to see Raffinée work the floral opening like this.
Applied: Spicy sweet carnation on the opening, there’s a floral quality up there that makes Raffinée smell elegant and light. The fragrance heads into the mid-stage dolling itself up with some light florals and a dusting of tuberose while the heavy-hitting incense and smooth vanilla amp up. The spiciness takes on a more fleeting role until the dry down where cinnamon makes a bit of an appearance. There’s a powdery quality to this fragrance that smacks of the clean sharp personality of an aldeyhyde treatment. This powderiness remains throughout its lifespan that echoes that clean and classic sensibility of classic perfumery. As Raffinée continues to age it takes on a warm, amber note and a slight bitterness on its way to dry down. The dry down is a pleasantly green, warm cinnamon and vanilla amber fragrance with a bit of woodsiness to round itself off. Raffinée has excellent longevity on me, and its complexity is absolutely fantastic. The projection on me was decent as well.
Extra: Raffinée’s been a victim of reformulation to make it less objective and easier to wear. I haven’t yet smelled the reformulation but of the opinions of the reformulation so far, I can’t say I’m in a hurry to. Houbigant was established in Paris in 1775 by Jean-François Houbigant. Nowadays Houbigant. You may see Raffinée listed “by Dana” instead of “by Houbigant”. The House of Houbigant has a long, sad story that saw the fall of a once great fragrance house to what it is now. You can read up about it at Perfume Projects.
Design: Unfortunately I was unable to identify an actual vintage bottle to use as a photo and I have yet to actually hold a vintage bottle myself. There’s a ton of different iterations for 
this fragrance as well which does not help in the least in terms of identifying which style the original formula came in. Adding to this complication is Houbigant’s very sad but very complicated recent history and Raffinée not being as well known as it should be. I would like to take an educated guess but would rather not risk being wrong. The fragrance’s general theme seems to be art deco etched in gold on red which sounds like a tasteful treatment. Of the bottles I looked at, the ones involving the art deco design gave the packaging a bit of old design appeal. Much more interesting that the designs that lacked the art deco elements. If you can help me out with the vintage fragrance’s design, please leave a comment!
Fragrance Family: Oriental
Notes: Carnation, orange blossom, plum, clary sage, jasmine, citruses, bergamot, rose, mimosa, tuberose, tonka bean, orchid, osmanthus, orris root, hiacynth and ylang-ylang, spices, cypress, sandalwood, cinnamon, musk, vanilla, vetiver, incense.
If you do seek out a bottle of Raffinée, I highly–with italics and everything–suggest you look for a vintage formula. And by vintage in this case, I mean its 1980s self to get the full effect of Raffinée. Any later and you may wander into watered-down and reformulated territory. Also be aware that true vintage Raffinée is difficult to find and quite rare (I, myself, have a small decant scraped out of the recesses of obscure fragrance). Many who label the fragrance as “by Houbigant” are actually talking about a newer formulation that should instead by labeled “by Dana”. It’s complicated, I know. I would appreciate any help in identifying a true vintage bottle.
Reviewed in This Post: Raffinée, ~1985, Eau de Parfum.
Ah, body odor, modern humanity’s odorous enemy. No matter what the virtues of body odor used to be–smelling bad is now a faux pas and people often equate smelling like BO to having bad hygiene. Now, some of us can’t help how we smell. Some of us sweat more than others, some of us exercise a lot and thus sweat more, some of us just have more odor. Enter deodorant, soap, perfume, and other deodorizing, smell good agents.
I’m shocked constantly by how many times people ask if they should use deodorant if they use perfume and vice versa. The answer is, sure, if you want to. I suppose the real question here is, how do you use deodorant and perfume without one overpowering the other or without creating a miasma of convoluted scent? The answer to that is simple too.
If you’re going to wear a perfume and need to wear deodorant as well, you should go for an unscented deodorant. The reason why you should avoid scented deodorants if you’re going to rock some perfume is because deodorant scents are strong, hardy things. Many of them project well, and have excellent longevity. Deodorants need to be robust because the purpose behind them is to both control odor and mask it. So chances are, a scented deodorant will overpower or mingle with perfume you choose to use.
There are a ton of unscented deodorants out there and if you don’t like the unscented stuff, using a deodorant with a light smell is good too. Some companies even brand men and women’s unscented deodorant–which is just asinine if you ask me.
Some of my picks for unscented deodorants include:
Just a forewarning, this is not a deodorant review site and I am not a deodorant expert. I will warn, however, that deodorants containing aluminum can cause a yellow, cakey build-up on clothing for some people. The result is a ruined shirt. And, let’s admit it, it’s kinda gross to look at too and probably not very comfortable to feel.
If you don’t sweat a lot, I highly recommend using deodorants without aluminum like the rock-type deodorants. If you’re okay with a lightly scented deodorant, I can recommend The Body Shop’s DeoDry deodorants as an aluminum-free option with scent. If you do sweat a lot and worry about odor these options may not work as well for you.
Which leads me to the next question that gets asked rather often, “Can’t I just spray my perfume under my armpits?” Well, you certainly could on a strictly scented-view (I’m not a dermatologist either and can’t say whether spraying perfume on your armpits is a good idea or bad idea on a medical standpoint) but keep in mind that perfumes weren’t formulated to be deodorants.
They’re more delicate for one, won’t last as long for another, and weren’t developed to suppress odor and mask it at the same time. The most a perfume would do on your pits is mask the scent until you start sweating and giving off odor.
Remember, one of the ways perfumes give off their scent is through heat. They give more scent if it is hot and they don’t last as long when it is hot. So when you’re sweating and your body temperature is elevated your perfume will be projecting a ton at first but its lifespan is probably going to be pretty dismal. That’s not to mention your natural body odor will mix with the perfume’s scent and what you end up with might be a concoction that smells similar to armpits, salt and sour vanilla.
Finally, please note that perfume and deodorant are two different things. I know how obvious that sounds but you won’t believe how many people buy a can of spray deodorant and insist that they are using perfume. It’s not perfume. It is a deodorant spray and it has a far different function than perfume.
So that’s the low-down. Use an unscented deodorant, or a lightly scented one, and wear your perfume freely–just not on your armpits.
Aftelier is one of the oldest and one of the most respected natural perfumers. Their fragrances run the gamut of light and pretty to dark and sensual. But no matter what side of perfumery you swing on, you cannot deny that undeniable quality and complex beauty that a natural perfume possesses.
In Bottle: Warmed up honey and a dollop of sweet florals. This makes me think of sweltering summer days spent under an umbrella and gardens full of sweet flowers.
Applied: Beautiful honeyed fragrance that’s supposed to come from the honeysuckle. I’m always very impressed with full-natural fragrances and how incredibly genuine and gorgeous they are. There’s a layer of complexity in this fragrance that you won’t find in a synthetic and this is why I think naturals are so well-respected. I smell honeyed florals, but I can feel the warmth. I can detect the little hints of other ingredients, blending and mixing into the sweetness to make this utterly appealing mix that simply defies description and can be left at, “Awesome!” Wearing Honey Blossom is like taking on a personal scent. It doesn’t sit on my skin and give away that I’m wearing a perfume. It blends in and makes me feel like I could smell like this naturally. There’s something so personal and lovable about this that I can’t do much else but gush about how awesome I smell. The long and short of it? Sweet, warm, honey, floral, and complex. Definitely worth a try.
Extra: Aftelier, the company, was established in 1997 by Mandy Aftel. Aftel has written books about natural perfumery. I have a copy of her Essence and Alchemy but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.
Design: I have a sample of this as the full on bottle is a bit too steep for my wallet. From what I can see, it’s a squat glass container with a stopper. The sample bottle I’ve got is a cute little glass cylinder with a plastic cap. I see these in supply stores and they never stop being cute.
Fragrance Family: Floral Oriental
Notes: Mimosa, linden blossom, orange blossom, honeysuckle, ambergris, benzoin.
At $150 USD for a 1/4 oz of perfume, your eyes may be bugging out right now. But also put this into perspective considering the quality of the ingredients and how long a 1/4 oz bit of concentrated parfum will last you compared to a 3.4 oz of eau de parfum. And of course, the joy of natural fragrances. After all, natural ingredients are not cheap or easy to come by.
Reviewed in This Post: Honey Blossom, ~2010, Parfum.
Villain is one of my holy grails. It’s a clean, herbal fragrance that doesn’t overdo the green or herbal. It’s clean and semi-masculine. Like a really well-behaved aftershave or a white starched shirt. 
In Bottle: First thing I smell is a sharp clean white musk with a hint of lavender and lilac floating in the background.
Applied: The citrus comes up faster than the white musk on my skin. It sort of blasts itself into the beginning and settles down as it lets the lighter lavender note come up. I know lavender is polarizing. Too much of it and a fragrance stinks, but use just enough and it adds a bit of much-appreciated personality to the scent. Villain has enough lavender to detect, not enough to make eyes water. The lavender is also toned down by a more predominant lilac note that works incredibly well with the clean white musk. Villain’s lavender evolves into a stronger player as the fragrance ages on me, but it never gets to the point where it overpowers the rest of the scent. Put all this together and you get a clean, semi-aromatic fragrance that makes me think masculine, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying this if you’re a woman.
Extra: Villain is described by BPAL as a Victorian lavender fougere.
Design: Villain is designed like all other 5ml bottles from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. It’s set in amber glass with a plastic screwtop. The label on the bottle displays the fragrance’s name and fragrance house.
Fragrance Family: Clean Aromatic
Notes: Lime, lavender, citrus, lilac, musk.
Just realized that it’s been a long time since I lumped a fragrance in the aromatic category. Anyway, Villain is one of the better lavenders I’ve smelled, but I tend toward sissy lavenders!
Reviewed in This Post: Villain, 2009, 5ml Bottle.
