hope it's okay to ask, have you ever done a Favorite Perfumes type post? i love reading about people's fav scents and what they mean to them.
as a side note, bpal is amazing but their catalogue is overwhelmingly gigantic lol
Hi! It's lovely that I get perfume asks now.
BPAL's catalogue is indeed overwhelming; I've found it most fun to have a stance of exploring and spontaneously discovering things rather than trying to go through in any kind of systematic way. (Aside from my broader systematic efforts to be able to smell like every single flower.)
Favorite perfumes is difficult because I genuinely love all the perfumes I wear and it's hard to choose! Also my perfume goal generally tends to be 'smell like flowers all the time,' which is not everyone's priority. But here are thoughts on a few, bpal only for simplicity's sake, and listed alphabetically so I don't have to choose between them further:
Athens (voluptuous myrrh, golden honey, red wine, and sweet flowers) - this was my first bpal and still one of my very favorites. At once regal and welcoming, it always reminds me of the Empress in tarot. It feels to me like authority with warmth, secure and steady. I love wearing it to work, and also when I otherwise want to hold my sense of accomplishment and capacity.
Brides of Dracula (gleaming skin musk, honey and white amber, plum blossom, osmanthus, sandalwood, calla lily, and a light blend of spices) - bpal did their first limited edition Dracula collection back in 2006, at a point when I had neither interest in nor means to buy a bunch of weird perfumes, but also when, on a cosmic level, it was rather symbolically perfect timing for me for Dracula perfumes to exist in the world. I thought I would never have a chance to experience this one, but by the blessing of fate I did and very much fell in love with it; it feels probably the most me of any perfume I've worn. It starts out very subtle and sort of unimpressive, and then there's gradual quality of blooming, like an image taking shape out of dust motes. It is very special to me and I treasure having it.
Like the Very Gods (shuddering, sweat-warmed skin gleaming with sheer musk, honeyed olive blossoms, vanilla cedar, white sandalwood, and orris butter) - this is probably the perfume I have which reads as most sensuous to me (though Brides of Dracula, with which it shares some notes, is a contender), and the one of those which most evokes (the fantasized image of) Ancient Greece. I love the olive blossom note in this one, and it makes me think of those tiny flowers catching in my hair, and sun on stone. This one makes me feel relaxed and embodied, with this sort of tensile energy. It was released in previous iterations of bpal's limited edition Lupercalia collection, was wildly popular (for good reason), and they brought it back again this year. I save it for days when I don't have to go to work, when I can feel more at ease and without responsibilities which require emotional containment, to preserve that association.
Lorrainna (an early 19th-century Italian perfume dabbed on black satin and lace – magnolia blossoms, lilac, orris root, and ambergris accord) - lilac is one of my very favorite floral scents, and I adore all my lilac perfumes very very much; I have several that it's hard to choose between to pick a favorite, but for this post I'll say this one. It's very smooth, both lilac and magnolia coming through beautifully, and it feels elegant to me, delicate without fragility, insistently floral with lightness, equally appropriate to wear in any context.
My Soul Acquiesced in It (melancholic white rose petals drifting in a pool of white musk, bitter almond, and icy vanilla) - this was from bpal's 2024 Carmilla collection; I loved many things in that collection and went a little crazy with it, but this is the one that feels the most me and thus is dearest to my heart. It does feel like a feminine vampiric hypnosis perfume to me! There's something sinuous and insidious to it that's more than the sum of its parts, more uneasy and intoxicating than the familiar, friendly-sounding notes. There's some quality which twists each of the potentially gourmand elements into a kind of piercing sharpness, even as they lull you with their familiarity.
Persephone's Ascent (sandalwood-infused vanilla, vines of pale spring blossoms, honeysuckle nectar, and sweet cream) - joyous, delightful, playful early spring perfume; this one is exactly what I want to celebrate Persephone's return and the the flowers she brings with her. It's my favorite honeysuckle, bright and sweet without being overpoweringly so, exactly right for garden days.
Two, Five, & Seven (a huge bouquet of squished rose petals: Bulgarian rose, Somalian rose, Turkish rose, Damascus rose, red and white rose, tea rose, wine rose, shrub roses, rose, rose, rose……and just an itty bitty bit of green grass) and Peacock Queen (a blood red, voluptuous rose, velvet-petaled, at the height of bloom) - these are my two nearly pure rose scents, and I cannot possibly choose between them. For me the former is a daytime, cheerful, summery rose, and the latter is an evening, dramatic, wintery rose, but I adore them both equally.
Posting this now before I second guess which ones I left out! But thank you for giving me an opportunity to ramble about scents for a bit.
