Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Dirty

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Dirty, from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is a purposefully ironic interpretation. Dirty, supposedly smells like soap and general cleanliness. Miles away from the gritty undertones of its name, Dirty is a flowery bar of soap sitting on the windowsill wafting in the cool breeze of a manicured garden. Dirty

In Bottle: Something very sweet in this. Sweet and floral this can’t be a single clean linen scent because it also contains what I swear is white floral and sweet herbs. It makes me think of fresh, white sheets blowing in the breeze and an opened window.

Applied: Definitely something sweetly floral in this. It reminds me of Bath and Body Works‘ Sweetpea and Cotton Blossom mixed into one. There’s a great sense of imagery in this fragrance though. I mentioned the clean laundry, the window, how about a little house in the Maritimes with the rolling sea crashing against a cliff edge’s jagged skirt hem? Yeah, that’s it. Dirty starts off with that sweet floral aroma and eventually dries down to subtle soap and clean cotton. It’s like a bath and a change of clothes during midday.

Extra: There’s been some speculation abound about whether or not BPAL uses all natural ingredients or if there’s some synthetics mixed in there. I would suggest you ask the company yourself if this concerns you. As far as my nose goes, BPALs are fun and simple fragrances. If they’re safe to use then whether they’re all natural or synthetic is of no consequence to me.

Design: Presented in an amber bottle and a black twist cap with 5ml of perfume oil.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Sweet herbs, white florals, cotton.

Dirty has an interesting case study. It delivers everything it needs to. I find myself conjuring up more vivid images in association with natural perfumes than constructed ones. That isn’t to say I don’t love the constructed ones or they’re somehow less effective. What tends to happen is natural perfumes make me think of scenes, landscapes, sounds and events. Constructed perfumes make me think of people and the cultures that they reflect.

Reviewed in This Post: Dirty, 2009, 5ml Bottle.

Victoria’s Secret Sexy Little Things Noir

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Victoria’s Secret, known mostly for their underwear brand, also has a fairly lucrative line of beauty products and fragrances. It’s fragrance side is a well-loved establishment that releases mostly fruity floral fragrances that are wearable, girly, light and happy. Sexy Little Things Noir

In Bottle: Fantastic burst of fruits. It’s like I just sprayed a bowl of fruit punch on myself. There’s a slight sourness that really compliments and helps tame this very sweet fragrance. Something about this is really juicy, like biting into a crisp piece of fruit, juicy. And behind it all, I smell the faint waft of the very enigmatic jasmine supported by the spicy creaminess of tonka bean.

Applied: Fruit punch and creamy vanilla is what Sexy Little Things Noir is to me. For its massive list of notes, it does a great job projecting a fruity almost gourmand fragrance. Also due to its massive list of notes, I can’t separate nectarine from apple. However, I can pick out jasmine in this as well as the tonka beans. Sexy Little Things Noir lacks anything that I would really consider to be “noir”. In that a fragrance that’s marketed as “noir”, to me, should have some element of deepness or darkness. Sexy Little Things Noir is just a sparkling, juicy, fruit salad with a sprinkling of white flowers on top. There’s no deepness or darkness, which betrays its name but hey, I’m all right with that. It has fantastic projection but the longevity on me is a bit weak, fading within four hours into light vanilla and jasmine.

Extra: Tonka beans are said to smell like vanilla. A while ago, they could have been eaten in addition to being used in perfumes before someone discovered they contained a potentially lethal anticoagulant. Thanks for the kicks, nature.

Design: I’ll admit it, I was drawn to this perfume like many others for the bottle. The glass is a very dark purple in a pleasing, beautiful shape. The winning feature for me? That pump atomizer. That pump that’s so iconic of Hollywood Noir where the women were glamorous and the movies were in black and white. Though fragrances in pump atomizers back in those days tended to be from fragrance families that people these days refer to as “old lady” perfumes.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Nectarine, apple, citrus, pineapple, guanabana, pear, red fruits, bergamot, cattelaya orchid, muget, cyclamen, jasmine, plum, vanilla, dewberry, cassis, amber, musk, woods, tonka bean.

Sexy Little Things Noir is a part of Victoria’s Secret’s fine fragrance line. Meaning, it’s an Eau de Parfum as opposed to the body mists that Victoria’s Secret sells. Sexy Little Things Noir also has a counterpart body mist, shower gel, and perfumed body powder.

Reviewed in This Post: Sexy Little Things Noir, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Prada Infusion D’Iris

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Infusion D’Iris is a fragrance true to its name as the fragrance strength and longevity are pretty much as good as an infusion’s going to get. This is an incredibly light fragrance with a very sad, very short applied life. No wonder a 200ml of Eau de Parfum exists. Having thought it funny that a bottle (not counting fountains) so massive existed at the time, I have since seen the light. I will no longer laugh at your jug’s worth of fleeting beauty, Infusion D’Iris. Infusion D'Iris

In Bottle: Green with a slightly earthy quality to it. Dark citrus laid over breaths of earthy, woodsiness. There is a very beautiful,very clear floral in this that lands the fragrance in floral territory immediately. I love the play between the freshness and the earthiness here. The latter often used in a denser way.

Applied: There’s a very bitter opener in this that powers through and reserve thoughts you may have had of D’Iris possibly being fruity. Nothing at all fruity about this fragrance as it tells you up front that it means business. The floral is also very quick to come up along with the woods and resins that blend together to make this fragrance sing during the early application period. As Infusion D’Iris ages on the skin the bitterness eases off a little, letting the flower and the rest of the fragrance do its work as it smooths out into a light whitish-green interpretation.

Extra: The iris sprouts from a bulb and like most bulb sprouting flowers tend to lack a scent, or have very little scent. There are some iris species that do have fragrant flowers but by and large you’ll find scentless iris petals. So, how come you see some people claim they can smell irises and love iris notes? They probably can because iris absolute does exist. Naturally extracted iris absolute, like many naturally produced ingredients in perfumery, are prohibitively expensive. Iris notes are made from the rhizomes of the plant rather than from the petals like most people would think. It would surprise many to discover that a lot of flower petals lack a fragrance and ye olde iris is one of them. How do they get the fragrance out of iris rhizomes then? They irradiate  them then extract the goodness. Irradiation is done to accelerate the aging of the rhizomes to get irones out of them. Irradiation simply makes things faster. Far faster, as aging iris rhizome the natural way could take years, whereas nuking them takes only a week. For the hypochondriacs out there, you cannot get cancer or radiation poisoning from wearing the extract from nuked iris root. You also will not become a superhero. I know. I’m sorry.

Design: Presented in a tall rectangular glass bottle with the Prada logo embossed on a plate. The cap is a plastic and metal affair with a band of green textured paper running along its barrel. Simple, easy, nothing flashy or complicated. I’m a minimalist by nature so the bottle here suits my tastes. The sprayer is also very decent, even, fine mist, does not distribute too much perfume. Though in this case, it probably should have.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Mandarin, orange blossom, iris, incense, benzoin, vetiver, cedar.

Here’s another surprise feature about perfume and supposed expensive ingredients. While there are genuinely expensive ingredients still used in perfume the vast majority of money that a perfume costs to you, the consumer, doesn’t go into the materials to make the fragrance. According to Luca Turin in The Secret of Scent, approximately 3% of the money goes into the fragrance components and development. The other 97%? Packaging, margins and advertising. And so my rage at Burberry Brit’s brick of a bottle continues.

Reviewed in This Post: Infusion D’Iris, 2010, Eau de Parfum.