Montale Soleil de Capri

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It’s a testament to how lovely Soleil de Capri is when I applied this and found it smelled so nice I had to stick my nose so close to the application site that I got some on my lips–then in my mouth. And before I knew it, I was swallowing the stuff and found it didn’t taste bad at all. Yeah, I’m a goof. But when a perfume tastes not bad and smells wonderful, you know it’s a keeper. Soleil de Capri

In Bottle: Light, sweetly floral and soapy scent with a very pleasant clean and clearness that I’m thinking might be white musk.

Applied: Lovely, clean and fresh and clear juicy, crisp citrus and clean white florals backed by a beautiful faintly sweet white musk. The scent sticks close to my skin. That’s how the little accident with me tasting this happened, you see. And you know what? It tastes like soap. Not at all unpleasant, though I wouldn’t recommend eating this all the same. The citrus stays around a bit but dissolves into the florals and white musk giving this a faintly soap scent. It dries down into a nice sheer musk. Soleil de Capri is lovely for sure, versatile for every day wear situations, not adventurous but manages to be beautiful just the same.

Extra: Sadly this isn’t the first time I’ve accidentally eaten or tasted my perfume. And funny enough, Soleil de Capri was the least offensive of the ones I’ve accidentally tasted.

Design: Bottled in much the same way as other Montale fragrances. Soleil de Capri’s container is a light brushed metal.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: : Grapefruit, kumquat, white flowers, white musk, spices.

I couldn’t smell much of the spices but the rest was certainly pleasant. Out of all of Montale’s fresh and clean fragrances, I really have to hand it to Soleil de Capri. It took light, airy, fresh and beautiful and made paradise for my nose.

Reviewed in This Post: Soleil de Capri, 2009, Sample Vial.

Vera Wang Rock Princess

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Let’s close off this princess trifecta for now with Vera Wang’s Rock Princess, the grown-up version of Princess and Flower Princess. Add some black to the bottle, amp up the dark notes and get ready to smell. Rock Princess

In Bottle: Rock Princess comes off as a fruity floral with a very weird dense foody note backing it up in the bottle. It’s like a mix between sweet, floral, and a really gigantic pile of sweet musk.

Applied: Starts off as a heavy fruity scent with a twist of sugar to sweeten it up. The alcohol that’s lingering on the surface of this is a little distracting too, smells a bit like whiskey. The fruits are also watery and while sweet, they’ve been in the bath a little too long. I’m not quite sure this dark, dense deal is really working out in Rock Princess’ favor as the fruits start melting into the florals turning this into a spoiled fruit-like scent. I’m smelling something slightly bitter at this point which is very awkward and kind of unappealing given how sweet the rest of the fragrance is. Rock Princess is a loud fragrance. Appropriate given its name. It’s so loud that one spritz would probably do it for most people as I had thought the original Princess had a decent enough projection. The dry down to Rock Princess is really the best part. Woodsy, with a hint of coconut and that same clean musk. The sugar is dialed down so I’m assuming Rock Princess thinks you’ve had enough after the cake bombardment.

Extra: Vera Wang is a very famous fashion designer based in The United States. Most people know her for her elegant and contemporary wedding dress collections.

Design: Rock Princess is the same shape and concept as the original Princess. The glass has been painted black though and the topper is now a dark grey. The bottle still pretty much works the same way. I wasn’t feeling Princess or Flower Princess’ bottles for their cutesy heart shape and I’m still not feeling the the design.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: White peach, raspberry, bergamot, heliotrope, rose, night-blooming jasmine, lily, cashmere woods, musk, iris and creamy coconut

I think out of all the three Princess fragrances I’ve tried and smelled, Flower Princess is up front in first place, then Princess followed by this Rock Princess deal here. I didn’t find the scent appealing and it seemed like a mish-mash of stuff that didn’t go together very well. There’s a Glam Princess flanker out now too, I think. I’ll be trying that one at some point I’m sure.

Reviewed in This Post: Rock Princess, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Vera Wang Princess

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Vera Wang Princess is a wildly popular girly fragrance released in 2006 and marketed toward women in my age bracket, the late teens to mid-twenties girl. It seems those of us in this bracket are wild about fruity, floral, candy scents because Princess is all of those things lumped into one big, purple package. Princess

In Bottle: Fruity top notes blended with clean girly florals. Very sweet, very feminine, and extremely young and lighthearted scent. There’s something a bit musky about it too.

Applied: Princess is a weird mix of foody floral peppiness and clean musk. It’s trying to go two ways and I’m not really sure that’s working out for it. However, what Princess does get right is a pleasant, sweet light floral swirling in pretty chocolate cake batter being mixed in the shower. The musk in this prevents Princess from being an all out gourmand. Dark chocolate mixes very well, I have to admit and this is coming from someone who thinks most chocolate notes smell terrible. The dark chocolate present in Princess is a rich, cakey note that is often one of the first notes to fade on me. Eventually, all I’m left with is sweet and clean musk. This is pretty much what a Disney Princess would smell like.

Extra: Seems like I’m on a sweet and floral binge lately with my fragrances. Princess is one of those scents that, for some reason, goes straight up my nose and blinds my sense of smell after a while. I smell this on everyone though, as its popularity means every young woman in and around my age is rocking the purple heart.

Design: Bottled in a big glass heart, Vera Wang Princess is an appealing look for–well, anyone younger than me who likes that kind of thing. I find the bottle to be  garish and a bit tacky. Cute, yeah, but it’s a big purple heart. You can also pop the cap off and wear it as a ring. The design is just a little too young for me, I think. Or maybe they just completely missed me when they designed this bottle because everyone else seems to love it.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Floral

Notes: Water lily, lady apple, mandarin meringue, golden apricot skin, ripe pink guava, Tahitian flower, wild tuberose, dark chocolate, pink frosting accord, precious amber, forbidden woods, royal musk captive, chiffon vanilla.

Jeez, look at that notes list. It’s pretty much like a recipe for some of the craziest cupcakes ever.

Reviewed in This Post: Princess, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Jean Paul Gaultier Ma Dame

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Ma Dame has one of the most addictive and fun commercials I’ve seen as of date. It features international It Girl, Agyness Deyn, with a snappy song and a great dynamic series of cuts showing the rejection of order and embrace of rebel and style. But like all fragrances, I advocate smelling the actual juice. The fragrance itself doesn’t really follow its marketing image. Ma Dame

In Bottle: Fruity, sweet and candy-like. This is floral too and has a strangely clean cotton candy scent to it. Now that’s just a bit odd as when I think cotton candy, the last thing I think is clean but hey, Ma Dame.

Applied: Flowers, sugar and citrus, big chunks of sugar and a ripe orange thrown in for good measure. At the heart of this fragrance is a lovely floral mixed in with the sweetness, like candied flowers covered in citrus clean. There something lemony to this because I can smell a very strong, sharp citrus trying to overcome the other notes. Ma Dame is a strong scent with lots of sillage. It’s projection will reach an impressive distance so use it sparingly if you’re going to be in an enclosed space with others. She’s a nice fragrance though with a bright and spicy little kick to her. The dry down is a sweet woodsy affair.

Extra: Ma Dame is by Jean Paul Gaultier, a French fashion designer well known for his haute couture and conceptual fashion items. You may recognize some of his work adorning the likes of Marilyn Manson.

Design: Ma Dame is bottled in glass with a female figure recessed into it. The figure is a throwback to Gaultier’s usual bottle style in the shape of a woman. The glass has a nice orange pink sheen to it. This one is pleasant to look at but I’ve always found the body shape bottles to be a bit too much.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Orange zest, rose, musk, cedar wood.

I wouldn’t refer to Ma Dame as an order rejecting fragrance. It’s a nice tweak from the usual fruity floral fare but it has a long way to go before it rejects anything. The sweet floral is pleasant though it can be a bit much–especially if someone mistakes this fragrance for a wilting lily and bathes themselves in it, thus causing a 100 mile radius cloud of pink scent to perpetually swirl about them like a sugary tornado.

Reviewed in This Post: Ma Dame, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Bath and Body Works Twilight Woods

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Despite all these things I have with the word Twilight or related to the hour of twilight, I really do not have any affection for the popular book/movie phenomenon. Really. Though I can’t help but think that this fragrance, in particular was a well-timed release by Bath and Body Works to capitalize on the Twilight craze at the time. Twilight Woods

In Bottle: Warmth is what Twilight Woods is. It’s warmth first, vanilla second, and woodsy last. And that’s just from the bottle. This smells clean, sweet, comforting and quite competent.

Applied: Opens as a fruity vanilla woodsy scent and starts moving into creamy vanilla woods scent with the frangipani. Twilight Woods lingers in that area for a bit before the fruitiness comes back for an encore and bows out with a nice watery, sweet woodsy vanilla scent that’s very pleasant. This smells like a really good fragrance to cozy up next to fire to. It’s nice, pleasant, very smooth and creamy and has excellent longevity and moderately good projection.

Extra: This is probably my favorite fragrance from Bath and Body Works. They talked about this and P.S. I Love You being two of their ventures into more abstract fragrance. Before, Bath and Body Works had fairly simple to decipher fragrances that were fairly linear. I was partial to their Pink Grapefruit body mist.

Design: Cute bottle with a nicely detailed image of a tree laid over the glass so when you’re looking at the bottle on the right side, you get a very pretty looking design. The cap is also quite nice. The entire design is slick and functional and most of Bath and Body Works’ eau de toilettes now come in bottles shaped like this one. The sprayer is functional and works just fine.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy Gourmand

Notes: Juicy berry, sparkling mandarin, coconut, creamy frangipani, soft mimosa, wet honeysuckle, wild freesia, apricot nectar, oud wood, skin musk captive, vanilla milk, and warm woods.

How do you like that notes list telling you what each  note is supposed to smell like? Frankly, I kind of like it but acknowledge its unnecessariness (it’s a word now).

Reviewed in This Post: Twilight Woods, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Viktor and Rolf Flowerbomb

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Flowerbomb is a pretty silly name for a fragrance that features so few flowers in it.  In fact, it smells more like caramel  or cotton candy than anything. You could call this Candy Bomb and it would make more sense. Flowerbomb

In Bottle: Despite the notes listing for this fragrance the first thing you are going to smell is sugar, vanilla, and caramel. Yes, the  fragrance that calls itself Flowerbomb doesn’t open with any florals. It opens with a gourmand. But wait, there’s more if you give her a little more time.

Applied: As you’re settling into your dessert you may start to wonder, where are my flowers? Didn’t I buy Flowerbomb? Why am I tasting a mountain of sugar instead? Then it hits you, jasmine and smoke. Did someone burn the caramel? Wait, I think I found a flower in Flowerbomb! A faint floral whiff of it coming at you from behind the cotton candy bush. It sneaks up on you, this little jasmine note, but its feet is stuck in the sticky candy and caramel mush road. When you finally notice it, you also start to notice the other florals too. Florals who had bloomed and are now dying, sinking into the hot sugar quicksand made of powdered sugar and melted caramels. What I’m trying to say is, Flowerbomb has a sweet, toothache inducing caramel fragrance with a floral heart that’s barely detectable. If you are looking for a floral fragrance, you will be looking hard for it behind the candy. As the heart continues to develop the caramel turns burnt, and the sugar, vanilla and whatever else is making this stuff smell like the underside of an amusement park ride seat gets even sweeter and sweeter until it hits cloying. Not just cloying like Miss Dior Cherie. Flowerbomb is smoky cloying. It stays at cloying well into the dry down when sugar attack mania is still all that you can smell until it fades into nothing but a light smoke trail. Wait, is that patchouli I’m smelling at the very tail end of this? Well, a little late to the show but at least I caught a fleeting glimpse.

Extra: I can’t understand the appeal of this fragrance that was released in 2004. I could understand Angel by Thierry Mugler but Flowerbomb’s youthful jolt of sweetness is beyond me. It polished the grit and character out of the patchouli so what I’m left with is a benign patchouli that can’t tame a sugar overloaded scent. I don’t think I will ever come to fully understand Flowerbomb either and can only commend it as one of the sweetest gourmands ever. If you want sweet and candy-like, you want this stuff. Did I mention this stuff has insane projection and longevity? Go easy on the sprayer, you will smell this for many hours.

Design: Flowerbomb has its rather signature pink grenade shaped bottle. Cute and iconic. A little conceptual if somewhat literal in interpretation. It makes this a nice looking perfume and a good conversation piece. The bottle itself is well designed, has a nice weight, is easy to hold and the sprayer is just dandy.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Bergamot, tea, jasmine, freesia, orchid, rose, patchouli.

Flowerbomb is probably one of the best examples of why the advertisements are not to be taken to heart. Official word labels this as a floral. But it is a gourmand above and all else and almost everyone who has smelled Flowerbomb would tend to agree. It takes a lot of digging, in other words, to find the flowers. This is a great fragrance for a very young audience who likes sweetness, likes caramel, and likes candy with a once in a while faint whiff of florals. It isn’t for me though.

Reviewed in This Post: Flowerbomb, 2009, Eau de Parfum.

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.

Guerlain Insolence

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Insolence is one of those modern Guerlains that was a hit or a miss. It seems to have more hits than misses than say–Champs-Elysees–but it has more interesting character to it taking it beyond the safe zone that Guerlain seems to have been skirting since its purchase by LVMH. Insolence

In Bottle: Yeah, definitely unique. The violet in this is a strange, uncertain floral that’s sweet for sure but lacks anything else to it. There’s something spicy in this too like anise or cinnamon along with the weird sugary, raisin scent in the back.

Applied: Sweet and bright with the red raspberry note coming up first and fading first leaving me with a dense, syrupy raisin-like fragrance with that persistent anise note that I wish I didn’t feel crazy for smelling.  Something in this reminds me of the classic Guerlains. I’m thinking it’s that anise or clove or whatever the heck that is which reminds me a bit of one of L’Huere Bleue’s many layers. But at the same time it’s clear Insolence is an updated fragrance meant for a young consumer as it’s trying to pull in a fresher audience. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if they really hit the mark as Insolence is not clearly defined as anything and at the end of the day, does smell like a bit of a fruity, floral, spicy and sweet mess to me. I’m sure a lot of women can love this fragrance but it is very polarized in terms of taste. You can either love it or hate it. Once Insolence does calm down, which takes quite a while, the fragrance is less sweet but it does retain some of that syrupy treatment all the way into the dry down where it gets darker, creamier, and more vanillic with a very nice red raspberry note to it. I had thought the raspberry had disappeared but it was just hiding behind the spicy flowers. As for whether I hate or love this? I could go either way but I feel like Insolence is a bit too loud and sweet and a little too clingy.

Extra: Word has it that this smells a bit like Apres L’Ondee, one of the Guerlains I have yet to try. I do get the familiarity of this to L’Huere Bleue so something in here is working that classic machine. I just think this is a bit removed from that era though.

Design: Insolence’s half-circle, flower and flower pot type design was by Serge Mansau a man famous for creating bottles for some of the most well known fashion and fragrance houses since the 60s. I gotta give the man credit for making this a nice looking bottle that’s interesting to look at. I just can’t get on board with how hard it is to hold this thing. It’s an awkward shape, making you have to hold it awkwardly, pinched between your fingers as you hope to avoid dropping it. Nice idea, interesting shape. I just can’t get on board with how hard it is to hold.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Sweet Oriental

Notes: Violet, raspberry, rose, orange blossom, raisins, balsam, iris, tonka bean.

You’re probably wondering what kind of fragrance family cop-out I’m doing with that spicy sweet thing. Well, it’s the only way I can really describe Insolence because, to my nose, it’s like a candy rolled in anise. It tries to be fruity, it tries to be gourmand, but it lands in the middle where it’s neither and the only place it even fits is in two vague categories.

Reviewed in This Post: Insolence, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Chloe 2008

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Chloe 2008 like Nina and Champs-Elysees is a moniker borrower. It is not a release of the original in different packaging. And along with this new formulation is a wave of disappointed fragrance lovers who expected 1975 Chloe but got 2008 instead. Chloe

In Bottle: It would be good practice to never approach a name borrowed fragrance or even a re-released fragrance with the expectations that it would even come close to smelling like the original. Nothing but disappointment can result. So I approached the new Chloe with as much open mindedness as I could. And you know what? It was pretty good. The new Chloe mashes together the light sweet peony with clean freesia and other mild, inoffensive and easy to love florals getting a nice, pleasant easy to wear flowery amber perfume.

Applied: Chloe goes on sweet and clean the peony and freesia doing its work immediately. There is a touch of sweet fruitiness but the focus of this fragrance is on the flowers. Rose comes in with magnolia tailing behind melding together with the opening notes as the entire scent turns airy and pretty. Chloe is a light yellow dress kind of scent with its sunny, cheerfulness and youthful sweetness. The dry down is a bit understated but still retains magnolia even as the sweet, warm amber heralds Chloe’s departure.

Extra: A little known fact about me is that I can never associate peony as smelling like anything else but air freshener. When I was a kid we had some off-brand air freshener kicking around the house. It was some concoction of berries and peonies but the strongest note was peony. If there was any sort of odor or blast of mustiness, out came the peony. One day, after frying a fish, the peony air freshener came out. The rank that erupted. I remember and loathe it to this day. It was a mix of fish, saltiness, burnt oil and sweet cloying peony. Emphasis on the sweetness and the fish. After that little incident we bounced around air fresheners that smelled like rain.

Design: Chloe is bottled in a cute glass rectangular affair with a plastic cap and an adorable little brown bow. The simplicity of this is very nice but in its simplicity the minor details like the textured glass and the little brown bow are pleasant bonuses.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Peony, lychee, freesia, rose, magnolia, muguet, amber, cedar.

The new Chloe is all right. At the very least, it is a highly wearable and easy to love scent. The best thing about the new Chloe for me is the bottle. I didn’t much like the old one but I prefer the original Chloe’s scent.

Reviewed in This Post: Chloe, 2009, Eau de Parfum.

Dior J’Adore

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Perfume ads tend to be these really dramatic, in your face styles. Or very subtle, introspective feels. For J’Adore it was an in your face kind of thing that one would expect from a loud floral fragrance. I remember the commercial for this one particularly well, with a decked out Charlize Theron throwing things on the floor. But to buy a perfume based on its marketing material is a pretty bad idea. Rarely has a fragrance smelled like its marketing. Whatever smell you would happen to take away from that kind of thing anyway. J'Adore

In Bottle: Clear, bright florals and a juicy sweet fruity scent. I wouldn’t venture to call this a fruity floral though. This is mostly just a floral with a heady flowery background.

Applied: Sweet and heady florals with a very minor fruity note trying to turn these florals to a fruitier position. The fruit evaporates upon the arrival of the mid-stage but I retain the sweetness with a pretty rose and violet scent as the woods start to usher in. The power of J’Adore is fairly impressive though its very sweet floral scent is so bright and sunny. Rather reminiscent of some perfumes I smelled earlier in my life. Flower powerhouses that radiate like entire gardens have been planted in your nostrils. J’Adore does calm down near the end though as the dry down works into a sweet woodsy floral.

Extra: Christian Dior is a fashion designer who founded the Dior fashion house.

Design: J’Adore the bottle is egg-shaped with a very interesting plastic cap wrapped in metal. I find the design fun to look at and handle. The bottle itself is very easy to hold and the sprayer works just fine.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Mandarin, champaca flowers, ivy, african orchid, rose, violet, damascus plum, amaranth wood, blackberry musk.

This is really just an inoffensive, nice smelling floral fragrance for a more mature person. The presence of those fruit notes doesn’t shift this fragrance any closer to young fruity floral as J’Adore is a firmly planted floral perfume that’s appropriate and wearable for a wide range of occasions.

Reviewed in This Post: J’Adore, 2009, Eau de Parfum.