Pimpage and BPAL

[keilexandra]

First, if you haven't already, you should go and read yhlee's online fiction/poetry. They're linked in the sidebar of her journal, but nice person that I am, I'm linking them directly here as well; 3 stories and 3 poems.

• "Notes on the Necromantic Symphony": I haven't actually read this yet, just added it to my lengthy reading folder, but it looks really cool.
• "The Shadow Postulates": A story about scholarship, sword-dancing, shadows, and love.
• "Screamers": Haven't read this either; SF, I believe. Maybe a Yoon-variation on space opera?
• "Dear Yourself": A short poem about the burden of a story.
• "Stella Rosetta": And a shorter poem, in the metafic style.
• "Unicorn Flesh": Fantasy poem on the consumption of the flesh of the fabled unicorn.

Major themes that I have noticed: POC [People/Characters of Color], music, math, Asia, and ornately pretty prose.

Also, I have finally tried BPAL! The aforementioned yhlee sent me a bunch of imps as an Xmas wishlist present--thank you ever so much! I'm wearing Bon Vivant right now, modest review of which follows:

Bon Vivant
An effervescent blend of crystalline champagne notes and sweet strawberry.
Wet: Pleasantly citrusy, fruity, and light.
Drydown: The strawberry is addictive--so warm and citrusy. Not sure what champagne smells like, but this is all strawberry on me. A keeper.

Not completely random draw--I did smell it in the bottle and thought it was promising. And it's name is en francais, so it rocks automatically.

Comments

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Hi! yhlee said you wanted tips about distinguishing notes? I'm not sure what advice to give since that was something I picked up naturally but give me a starting point and I'll see what I can advise. (I think practice helps. Reading the description helps. Reading reviews on the BPAL forums helps.)

What are you having trouble with? What do you want to be able to do? I know the second question sounds silly but I know, when I first got into BPAL, I wanted to be able to pick out as many notes as I could so that's what I worked on. Some people only want to be able to give the general impression. Some people want to give mood and tone. Some want to give a combination. So what's your "goal" so to speak?

[keilexandra]

I'm good with -very- general impressions, but I definitely want to work on picking out individual notes. I can't even distinguish pure scents, though, so I am rather apprehensive about separating such complex blends as many BPAl scents are.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Well, reading your review of Bon Vivant, I think you did an all right job. That's a simple blend as far as BPAL goes. You got the strawberry and what you're calling the citrus is most likely the champagne. The Lab's champagne note smells acidic and bubbly.

Here's how I approach note identification:
1. I read the Lab's description.
2. I sniff the blend. I note down what notes I can smell then.
3. I dab some of my wrist and rub my wrists together.
4. Then I take a good long sniff. My wrist is about an inch from my nose.
5. Right away, I can usually identify what scent family the blend belongs to: fruity, floral, gourmandy, incense, musky.
[I tend to avoid the last two scent families because they are disasters on me.]
6. Then I start picking out notes. Do I smell fruit? What kind of fruit? Do I smell flowers? What kind of flowers? Do I smell food? What kind of food? Do I smell leaves, vegetation, dirt, wood...? Etc.
7. I note down impressions. I'm very good at identifying fruit and food, but amazingly dismal at identifying white florals. I usually just write down "white florals".

There's really no rhyme or reason to it. Just note down as much details as come to you -- scents, impressions, feelings, tone. The first time I tried Pele, it reminded me of a jungle flower after the rain. The first time I tried Tamora, I thought of honey drenched peaches basking the sun.

Don't worry about not being able to pick out all the notes. Sometimes you can't. Sometimes they just don't show up on your skin. My skin chemistry has the unfortunate tendency to magnify incense and smoke and turns the Lab's plum note to plastic. You can't control that and skin chemistry is why certain blends work fabulously on some people and atrocious on others.

[keilexandra]

Will be keeping this around as a reference guide--thanks muchly!

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I'm glad at least one of the imps has worked on you! If you like Bon Vivant, you might like Strawberry Moon. It's an older LE, but I have an extra decant--would you like it? (I have a half-bottle of it, so I'm good to go, and I'd hate for you to miss out.)

[keilexandra]

That would be lovely, if it's not too much trouble. (Wahh, I am such a moocher--all BPAL has come from you!) Strawberry is a mellow enough scent that I might even wear it to school.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

No trouble at all. I just need to get my act together. :-)

And hey, when I was a BPAL newbie, magicnoire helped start me out by sending me some imps I never would've gotten to try otherwise. I figure least I can do is pass on the favor.

Nice thing about not having an office job is I can wear whatever the heck scent I please around the house. (The lizard seems to like scentiness in general and has yet to object to any of them.)

[keilexandra]

Ah, the BPAL grapevine! XD Seems like an expensive collector's hobby (compared to books), but still cheaper than decent perfumes, I suppose.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

It can be really expensive, but doesn't have to be once you've got stuff to trade. Trading imps and/or bottles is cheaper than buying new stuff all the time (although obviously you have to buy once in a while and either find that the stuff works or that it doesn't and then you have tradestock). You can buy decants/imps for a few bucks each, instead of spending the ~$20 on a full bottle. I find that imps last a long time if sparingly applied. Of all the full imps I have gotten, I have yet to completely use one up. Granted, this is because I have a variety of scents and I rotate between them, but I suspect it would take me quite a while to use one up!

Anyway, early on, I would suggest trading for a variety of things (if you feel like it) in order to get a sense of what scents you like and what works on your skin, which narrows the possibilities. For example, I know to stay the heck away from anything involving myrrh, cinnamon, roses, florals; but most fruits and most foodie scents work well on me, and some of the citruses. It'll be different for you, most likely, but you get the idea.

And remember, if you see me mention a BPAL scent that ultimately doesn't work on me, and it's not already promised to someone else, you're totally welcome to ask me if I'm willing to pass me along. :-) I mean, at that point, the scent isn't doing me any good just sitting in my closet, y'know? (If it makes you feel guilty, send me a postcard or something in exchange. I adore postcards.)

[keilexandra]

Speaking of storage: any specificities in that area? Right now they're all jumbled in the plastic baggie, tucked away (recently) in my dresser drawer since I remembered yesterday that light is bad for scents.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I keep mine in a box in a dark closet away from heat. I'm not very sophisticated about these things. ^_^