Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab does a lot of officially licensed perfumes. Some of them, like the Neil Gaiman and Labyrinth scents, get a ton of attention; others fly below the radar, I think, like the ParaNorman perfumes. I haven't seen a lot of reviews of these out there, so I'll talk about Bub from the ParaNorman collection this week.
Speaking of officially licensed scents: I really wanted to review one of the Good Omens scents, in honor of Terry Pratchett's recent passing, but I still feel sad enough that I didn't feel like I could do it this week. Maybe another time.
Price: $26 for a 5 mL amber glass bottle of perfume oil with polyseal cap.
Samples: Not available for this scent.
(More details about price and shipping can be found in our Company Overview post about Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.)
Description from the website: "A dog’s bright, beaming memories of playing in the sun, rolling in the grass, and begging for table scraps."
I always love a nice green-grass scent, so I was kind of hoping for one here, based on the description. However, it comes across light and sweet and charming and not very green at all--it smells like citrus cookies to me, sort of like those lemon-ginger cookies with the creamy filling. I think the citrus might actually be orange, upon further sniffs, but the citrus combined with a cookieish spicy scent with subtle hints of cinnamon and ginger made me think of those lemon-ginger cookies immediately.
It's also softly fuzzy and lightly amber-musky, very soft-feeling, though there's a hint of carbonated fizziness in it--the combination is very pleasant and cozy. Strange, because you wouldn't think fizzy fur plus citrus cookies would make a nice combination, but it smells very comforting, much like a clean animal. (Bub will always be a cat name to me more than a dog name, but that suits me fine!)
I had a bottle of a past BPAL scent called A Wonderful Light for a while before selling it--it was oranges and linden and amber, which sounded great in theory but in practice, I always found it too heavy and didn't want to wear it very often. Bub almost smells like a flanker to A Wonderful Light, a very light, airy, clean tincture rather than a heavy rich perfume, but both share that impression of sweetened amber and citrus.
If you like "cozy" clean musk scents like Haus of Gloi's Cozy Sweater, I think Bub will be a perfume that's right up your alley. Sweet and clean, it's pleasant and easy to love. It's not very strong or long-lived at all, so you might have to reapply throughout the day, but it's one of the "easier," more conventional-smelling BPAL perfumes, the type that doesn't call attention to itself and would be appropriate for a workplace or family gathering.
For other reviews of Bub and other scents in the ParaNorman collection, you can also check out Sequential Tart, cookinguptales, or the bpal.org forums.
Note: this scent is vegan.
0 comments:
Post a Comment