A Guide for BPAL Newbies

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As Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab (BPAL) fragrances get more and more popular, some people might be interested in finding out just what all this hubbub is about. They’ll inevitably discover The Lab’s website address and look for themselves. Upon which they are bombarded by the general catalog fragrances of which there are hundreds of and decide that it is, really, quite too much to sort through.

And the site is intimidating with hundreds in the general catalogue and literally thousands if you include former general catalogue fragrances and limited editions that are no longer available. How is someone new to BPAL supposed to get around and figure out what they want to try? Or what’s supposed to smell good?

While this cursory guide is not an in-depth document meant to school you in every fragrance available from BPAL, it will list a few common, popular, general catalog fragrances that you may want to try out when you’re looking to order your first pack of samples.

How do samples work at BPAL?

BPAL’s sample vials are typically around 1ml and are referred to as imp’s ears. You can buy one imp ear for $4.00 or get a pack of six for $22.00. The prices have been adjusted recently as of this posting which is why on your travels around the internet, you may get conflicting price quotes. The best rule of thumb is to trust what The Lab says on its website. If you discover the secondhand market for BPAL sample vials, you can typically get these for much cheaper, though you may not be able to pick and choose which scents you want to get as a sample seller will usually not carry all the fragrances you are looking for. Imps

What should I include in my sample pack order?

Usually people will think that what you want to include in your sample pack are fragrances they’d like. This is a good safe practice. But I also recommend that people go out of their way to try fragrances they wouldn’t normally think they’d like because all scents can smell different on different people and all scents are composed differently too, this goes for mainstream, niche and BPAL alike. With a catalog of readily available perfumes ranging into the hundreds, why restrict yourself?

Now, let’s get into the meat of this post. You have on the website a few hundred general catalogue scents that can be ordered as samples (pay attention to that page on The Lab’s site about imps and what fragrance lines cannot be ordered as samples too). You have a general idea of what scents you like but don’t want to fiddle around wondering what would work on you since browsing the site could take hours and hours. The following is a handy little list of popular general catalog BPALs that I recommend, ordered to fit a few fragrance types to help you pick and choose:


Citrus: Cheshire Cat (Mad Tea Party), Whitechapel (Wanderlust), Night Gaunt (Picnic in Arkham).
Clean: Dirty (Sin & Salvation), Lilium Inter Spinas (Ars Amatoria), The Lady of Shalott (Ars Amatoria).
 Fresh: Embalming Fluid (Ars Moriendi), Kumiho (Diabolus), Phantom Queen (Diabolus).
Floral: Glasgow (Wanderlust), The Unicorn (Mad Tea Party), Amsterdam (Wanderlust).
Fruity: Aglaea (Excolo), Baobhan Sith (Diabolus), Yemaya (Excolo).
Gourmand: Dorian (Sin & Salvation),  Eat Me (Mad Tea Party), Gluttony (Sin & Salvation).
Herbal: Villain (Diabolus), Lear (Illyria).
Musky: Bien Loin d’Ici (Ars Amatoria), Snake Oil (Ars Amatoria), Penitence (Sin & Salvation).
Smoky: Anne Bonny (Bewitching Brews), Djinn (Diabolus).
Spicy: Queen of Sheba (Ars Amatoria), Scherezade (Bewitching Brews), Plunder (Bewitching Brews).
Sweet: Aunt Caroline’s Joy Mojo (Bewitching Brews), The Dodo (Mad Tea Party).
Woodsy: Sri Lanka (Wanderlust), The Coiled Serpent (Bewitching Brews), Arkham (Picnic in Arkham).

It should be noted that these are just recommendations based upon my tastes. What you like or dislike may be different so feel free to look at these as suggestions only. If you have any suggestions to add to this list, please feel free to comment.

Also keep in mind that BPAL may have to discontinue some of the fragrances listed in this post at a later date due to component issues so some of these recommendations may not be available when you go to order your samples. Always double check the site to ensure the fragrance you want is still available before you send in an order. If a fragrance you wanted a sample of is not available or was discontinued, BPAL will substitute it with an available fragrance.

Montale Chypre Vanille

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Shameful as it is, I do not remember how Montale’s Oud based fragrance line smells like. Not a single one. I’m working my way back in that direction though. Along the way, I’m picking up some others first. Notably, the cleaner, whiter Montale fragrances that catch that part of me that just wants to smell clean and fresh. Chypre Vanille

In Bottle: Light and green, very pleasant and clean fragrance. Think fresh out of the shower scent with a nice, light, floral mist.

Applied: Beautifully light floral fragrance that’s very quintessentially white and airy. There’s a soapiness to this that opens the fragrance and stays with it as the scent starts to age. The incense used in Chypre Vanille isn’t your typical fair. It’s been cleaned up to the point where it’s hard to recognize as it helps to dry out the vanilla, presenting this concept of vanilla that is unfamiliar but very likable. Chypre Vanille takes the sweetness out of vanilla and makes it sharp and clean, something I wouldn’t expect the note would be capable of. But it wouldn’t be the first or last time I’m wrong. There’s a powderiness to this fragrance too that lingers in the back and reminds you once every so often that it’s still there. The dry down is a nice clean and dry woodsy scent with a very heavy reminder of the vanilla that this was based on. The dry down actually reminds me a little bit  of how the classic Guerlains smell.

Extra: Montale is popular for their many different oud-based fragrances that run the gamut of colors, styles and scents.

Design: Bottled in much the same way as other Montale scents, Chypre Vanille is presented in a lovely dark blue bottle with a metal cap and sprayer.

Fragrance Family: Chypre

Notes: Vanilla, rose, amber, incense, sandalwood, iris, vetiver, tonka bean.

An interesting take on what some people cringe to refer to as a “modern chypre”. I don’t know if I like it enough for a bottle but it’s still pleasant nonetheless. Something very clean about it. Almost soapy but very nice.

Reviewed in This Post: Chypre Vanille, 2009, Sample Vial.

Armani Acqua di Gio pour Homme

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Acqua di Gio pour Homme, like Dolce & Gabanna’s Light Blue, was one of those extremely popular fragrances that everybody seemed to wear a few years back. And to my understanding, it is still popular though not to the extent that it once was. And people can easily understand why this one and Light Blue are popular. They’re highly easy to wear and are appropriate for most places the average person would tend to go. Acqua di Gio

In Bottle: While one would have to wonder what exactly a marine note is and how you’re supposed to be able to smell water. Aqua notes, to me, have this sharp blue quality to them. And Acqua di Gio pour Homme does, indeed, have that sharp blue quality from out of the bottle. It also contains something sweet and pleasantly nice to tame that sharpness a bit as pure aqua, to my nose, is very sharp.

Applied: Blue aqua notes, sharp and fresh with a sweetness to add a less abrasive dimension to smelling pure water. Smelling aqua is akin to going swimming and accidentally getting some pool water in your nose. That stinging, horrible pain is akin to a too strong, too pure aqua note to me. But Acqua di Gio pour Homme (am I using the word “aqua” enough?_ does a nice job mixing in other notes so it’s not pool water up your nose strong. There is a clear cedarness to this as well as sweetness coming from a rose and persimmon angle. The scent also does a fantastic job incorporating rosemary into the opening and in the mid-stage. The dry down is a nicely sweet, clear patchouli and clean musk.

Extra: Acqua di Gio is sometimes referred to as the trailblazer fragrance that ushered in a fad of fruity fresh fragrances that where Acqua di Gio pour Homme is a part of.

Design: In a rather plain shaped bottle with a slight curve in the body. The bottle is a pleasant and easy enough thing to hold though grasping the thing in my girly hands is a bit difficult due to its width. It has a metallic cap that slides very nicely into place. Something about the font face or the design of Acqua di Gio pour Homme really slots it very nicely into the Giorgio Armani line of fragrances as the designs do tend to look similar.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Jasmine, rosemary, citrus, persimmon, marine notes, cedar, patchouli, white musk, rock rose.

I like Acqua di Gio. I like how normal and completely unexciting it smells. These typical rather normal and inoffensive fragrances are popular for a reason. It’s because they always tend to smell pleasant and easygoing. It also has the benefit of being fairly unisex.

Reviewed in This Post: Acqua di Gio pour Homme, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Dolce & Gabanna Light Blue

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Dolce & Gabanna are like the masters of the inoffensive scent. Light Blue is considered to be one of the most popular most inoffensive and easily wearable fragrances available. I used to smell this stuff everywhere when everyone had a bottle. Back then it seemed like one in every tenth person was rocking Light Blue, but that phase seems to have passed and people have moved onto fruitier things. Light Blue

In Bottle: Fresh, citrus scent with a note of cedar. I can smell the apple, tart and crisp. The in-bottle scent is a bit aqueous too. This is clean, fresh, like a very nice shower gel or shampoo. Or a well made alcoholic drink.

Applied: Mojitos. It smells like mojitos! The apple and lime just combine nicely into tricking my nose. So what I get is apple, lime, mint and rum. Very slightly tart and very slightly sweet. I don’t know why I’m so happy about that but Light Blue’s alcohol base is doing its work with the citrus and aqueous notes in this. It’s like I spilled a mojito on me and decided I was too busy to wash it off. But after that initial burst of mojito, Light Blue turns toward the woodsy side of its personality. Cedar comes up, and the citrus side of Light Blue gets together very well with it. Then disaster strikes as the lemon notes comes in and bulldozes everything. I’m starting to see a trend here as lemon tends to be the obliterator of perfumes on my skin. I cannot for the life of me, smell anything but this stupid lemon now.  Once in a while that green apple scent will flair up like it’s trying to make itself known. Upon dry down there is a soft woodsy and musky quality to Light Blue that fades in and out of the loud and obnoxious lemon that eventually dies but when it does, there’s nothing else left to appreciate.

Extra: At one point I owned a deodorant stick in Light Blue scent. It smelled much more like a mojito than the fragrance. It was also a highly pleasant wake up in the mornings thanks to the sheer freshness of this. Not to mention the looks I’d get as people would think I drank before I went to work.

Design: Light Blue is bottled in a big glass rectangle with frosted glass. The cap is is an equally rectangular blue plastic affair. The bottle is a little strange to hold but it is manageable. Nothing exiting going on with the design of this bottle. There are hundreds of different fragrances that employ the big rectangle bottle out there.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Granny smith apple, sicilian cedar, lemon, lime, bluebells, jasmine, rose, bamboo, cedarwood, amber, musk.

You shouldn’t wear Light Blue if you’re looking for something that smells unique or interesting. The time for Light Blue to be interesting ended the day everybody decided to wear it. But it is not at all a bad scent. It is highly versatile, very inoffensive and extremely appropriate for wear in an office.

Reviewed in This Post: Light Blue, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Creed Love in White

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Love in White is one of those fragrances with a wide split between people who love it and people who hate it. It’s Creed’s answer to the ultimate fresh fragrance. This stuff is so fresh and crisp it makes my eyes water. Billed as a women’s fragrance, Love in White comes in a cute, feminine white bottle that’s supposed to represent a woman, the sand, and the sea. I can dig it. Love in White

In Bottle: Sweetness, aqua, and something sharp. Like sugar water with broken bits of glass and twisted pieces of metal. Love in White is strong too. So strong that my first whiff of it went straight up my nose and exploded in the back of my head. The sharpness that I assume might be the zest is so strong in this that it went beyond fine fragrance and reminded me of household cleaner.

Applied: Not much dying down of that sharp note on application but I do get the rest of the fragrance now that it’s on my skin. It’s like somebody turned up the volume on the jasmine note here because it’s very high-pitched, almost shrill as it tries to out sing the sandalwood. Meanwhile, iris with its rather distinct brightness is adding to the fresh feel. There’s got to be some aqua note in this because I swear I can smell water. I suppose that’s where the ocean imagery comes from but so much of this fragrance is clean and fresh that it’s hard to move beyond those two concepts to something gentler. The dry down helps a bit, the sharpness fades and the florals have sore throats and are now just whispering. I can appreciate the quiet calm of the dry down here as the soft creaminess of that vanilla shows up to help tame the sandalwood a little.

Extra: Love in White kind of reminds me of household cleaners. Not in a bad way. I mean, household cleaners contain fragrances meant to offend the least amount of people. Love in White is that inoffensive. The thing I can fault it for is how close it has to stick to my skin so I have to get up really close and personal. And when I’m that close, the fragrance is incredibly strong.

Design: The white bottle for Love in White is supposed to represent the feminine, the ocean and the crisp ocean air. I’m not sure I’m really feeling the look of the bottle or the conceptualization of it but it is pleasant enough to look at.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Orange zest, rice husk, iris, jasmine, daffodil, magnolia, rose, vanilla, ambergris, Mysore sandalwood.

When it’s all said and done Love in White is a very fresh sort of shrill scent with a loud projection that also manages to stick relatively close to the skin. I have to get up close to really smell it but once I’m that close I also tend to get its entire assault up my nose.

Reviewed in This Post: Love in White, 2010, Sample vial.

Nina Ricci Nina 2006

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Nina by Nina Ricci was my first perfume. At the time, I was still growing out of my body mist and lotion phase and was still wearing fruity fragrances. That was four years ago, before I gave florals, musks, woods, ambers, and all manner of things a try. Nina is a young fragrance, filled with apples and sweetness and sugary sparkle. I remember when it was new, when I had wandered into the perfume section by accident and thought the bottle was just adorable. Nina

In Bottle: Vibrant lemon and lime with a note of apple and sugar. Nina prior to application smells like a lemonade stand. A lemonade stand with a very popular, very aromatic product though. Smell a couple more times and I start to notice this sticky, sweet vanilla toffee too.

Applied: Lemonade followed by the apple note. The apple in Nina is a big, red juicy one that’s been covered in a vanilla toffee mixture. There’s a lot of sweet notes in this fragrance but thankfully that lemonade and lime scent at the beginning doesn’t fade immediately. It sticks around and adds a tartness to Nina so that the sweetness of the fragrance doesn’t turn cloying. There’s a bit of taming going on too from the very light florals as Nina settles down into a fresh scent reminiscent of a cool, refreshing drink. The dry down takes a while to approach because Nina has excellent longevity. Hours after application and the citrus notes fade first, with the apple and sugar holding on strong until those too start to give. It’s on the very last leg of the fragrance’s stages where some of the wood notes show up for a very brief time before completely disappearing.

Extra: Nina Ricci was founded by Maria Ricci and her son in 1932. They started out as a fashion house in Paris. The Nina Ricci brand’s best known fragrance is L’Air du Temps.

Design: Contained in an adorable apple shaped bottle, Nina has a metal cap that protects the sprayer that is also used as the apple’s stem. The leaves have the house’s name engraved into them and the entire bottle is one seamless, beautiful piece of fun decorative art. Even if you don’t like the fragrance for some reason, the bottle makes for very cute decor. As noted in an earlier review, the makers of the Twilight perfume used Nina’s bottle for their fragrance, sparking a lawsuit.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Lemon, lime, apple, toffee, peony, moonflower, vanilla, cedar, applewood.

I don’t wear Nina much anymore. Sure, once in a while I’ll dig it out and give it a sniff, maybe a spritz, but I’ve since moved on. Moved on but not forgotten. I wouldn’t get rid of Nina. It was my first real perfume, a stepping stone into the rest of my obsession. To get rid of my first bottle of perfume just wouldn’t make sense to me.

Reviewed in This Post: Nina, 2007, Eau de Toilette.

Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue Pour Homme

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Light Blue Pour Homme falls into that weird category of “sports” fragrances that are described as fresh, clean and perfect for the active man. It’s no surprise then that Light Blue Pour Homme is as inoffensive as they can get. It also sort of smells like deodorant and at the same time smells like about ten other sports fragrances for men out there. Light Blue Pour Homme

In Bottle: Spicy, woodsy, citrus. Pretty standard as far as inoffensive aquas go. With an opener that contains lime, bergamot, rosemary and a hit of woods, I don’t see this turning any heads to someone or away from someone. Most people would probably just think you’re wearing a standard men’s deodorant.

Applied: Same deal here, hit of bergamot, lime, rosemary and some woodsy notes. It stays like that for a few minutes with the citrus ebbing out a bit as the rosemary gets stronger. The dry down is a bit woodsier but still with that sharp, fresh and clean bite to it. Light Blue Pour Homme is an all-purpose sporty fragrance with a lack of distinction. It doesn’t smell bad at all. It just smells–eh–ordinary. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. If you’re just looking for something that’s going to smell good, that you can wear during the summer months, that won’t offend anyone, Light Blue Pour Homme is the safest bet.

Extra: Dolce & Gabbana started in 1985 as an Italian luxury fashion house. One of their most popular fragrances, that this one was based off of, is Light Blue.  Another that you may be familiar with from Dolce & Gabbana is The One.

Design: The bottle for Light Blue Pour Homme is a step above the bottle for original Light Blue. Pour Homme has a more interesting shape, though the look of it reminds me more of a bottle for a face cleanser than a luxury fragrance. But still, the design is decent. The sprayer works fine, distributing a fine and even mist. The cap is easy to take off and put on. It has that really nice slide to it.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Fresh

Notes: Apple, bluebell, cedar, jasmine, rose, bamboo, amber, musk.

With the fact that I said this smells more like a deodorant than an interesting men’s fragrance, I will point out that Light Blue Pour Homme comes in deodorant stick form. Hey, talk about convenient.

Reviewed in This Post: Light Blue Pour Homme, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Disclaimer: The fragrance sampler spray reviewed in this post was provided to me for free. I am not in any way receiving pay or compensation for this review. This review was written based upon my personal experience and opinions of the product.

Chanel No.5 Eau Premiere

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Commence the raving, Chanel No.5 Eau Premiere makes the regular No.5 and twists it into a modern, clean but still classic smelling fragrance. Eau Premiere was made to capture that lost subsection of individuals who thought the original No.5 was just “too much”. That No.5 smelled too much of aldehydes or far too old. In essence, Eau Premiere is an updated, stripped away, younger version.  Eau Premiere

In Bottle: Bright, fresh citrus over that familiar Chanel No.5 smell. But there’s something clearly lacking. The aldehydes that come up immediately upon first sniff have been toned down. The sparkle is a bit duller but Eau Premiere still has that No.5 base, it’s just less blatant now.

Applied: Citrus and a shout of florals before Eau Premiere settles down. Imagine Chanel No.5, then take away most of that sparkle by toning down its aldehydes. Tweak the florals so they dance and float in the air like a pretty, flighty piece of transparent cloth. The powder is noticeably toned down in Eau Premiere to further “update” this fragrance and make it more youthful. The final dry down also lacks that heady, dense, muskiness in the original No.5. Eau Premiere is a younger class of lady. She’s a pale gown and a diamond necklace compared to Chanel No.5’s sleek black dress and pearls. I get that same, but subdued clean, floral, jasmine fragrance but it’s lighter, greener, more fresh and less dense. Nevertheless, the essence of the old classic is still in there.

Extra: Beautiful as it is, Eau Premiere is a flanker. And flankers are not always bad. Though the ones that come immediately to mind for me weren’t to my tastes. Still, when you think about all the different products Chanel has with No.5’s essence, soaps, lotions, body gels, powders, and on and on, another flanker based on No.5 might seem excessive. But if you love Chanel No.5, it’s daughter, Eau Premiere is worth a try. She’s got the same breeding but is obviously in a younger style.

Design: Presented in a tall rectangular glass bottle with the house name and fragrance name embossed onto the glass. The bottle takes its inspiration from the original Chanel No.5 bottle but in a taller, easier to hold form. The cap is especially familiar, being made of a denser material. Chanel’s bottle designs have always been beautiful and Eau Premiere’s is no exception.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Mandarin, bergamot, aldehydes, jasmine, neroli, ylang-ylang, rose, vetiver, vanilla.

Eau Premiere was tweaked by Chanel’s in-house perfumer, Jacques Polge. Polge was responsible for the wildly popular, and very successful Chanel fragrance, Coco Mademoiselle. He’s also done Cormandel, Egoiste, and Allure Homme.

Reviewed in This Post: Chanel No.5 Eau Premiere, 2009, Eau Premiere.