Monday Beauty Poll
By Glinda
Ahhhh, is it Monday already? I knew there was a reason I was feeling disappointed.
51% of you are mildly bothered by nonsensical beauty product names, and 34% of you could care less about the name. 9% are so bothered by silly names that they refuse to buy products with the aforementioned, and 4% are all about embracing a little linguistic creativity. I would put myself in the majority camp, although I will buy it if I like the product enough.
Today, there’s a newly released perfume that I want to ask you about.
June 4th, 2012 at 7:35 am
A perfume that smells of printer’s ink. Wow.
Following perfumes that are composed of supposed essences which, in fact, have no scent or are not really used, just alluded to or actually just misnamed (Illamasqua Freak’s “hemlock”, I’m talking to you). Top that with the phoney scent switcheroo over supposedly deadly scent extracts in classic perfumes (all subsequently conveniently replaced by no less deadly but significantly less impressive chemical compounds held in patent by a big fatass corporation) and you can see that the art of perfumery has taken a very bad turn in the 21st century.
I’m going to continue my shopping for vintage, pre-LVMH-buyout scents wherever I can find them. If everyone else wants to smell like laundry detergent and soaked paper and pay a massive price for the packaging it comes it, let ’em.
June 4th, 2012 at 9:29 pm
@Aurumgirl: That’s why I buy a lot of my scent at ::shudder: Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. As I believe Plumcake once pointed out, you have to make your way through some atrocious copy, but the scents are very much as described. For $3/sample (an “imp”) that can last weeks with judicious use or $15/bottle that can last years, it’s hard to beat. Just…hold your nose as you wade through some of descriptions. I’m not remotely Goth, but it turns out some of my favorite scents have names like “Death Cap” and “Black Forest” and “Blood Amber”.
June 5th, 2012 at 5:41 am
I know about BPAL, and I have sampled some of their stuff too. I’m kind of biased, though–but I have to concede that bias is firmly based in my olfactory nerves. BPAL trades on using “natural” essences for the scents and I’m of the mind that the “naturals” ain’t all that, not without some help from some of the tried and true ancient essences that aren’t always strictly defined as “natural”.
BPAL has also lost some points with me on their promotional lit…they claim to know stuff they just don’t, or is at least irrelevant to making perfume (but those claims “sell”, so they’re going to make the false claim). I can’t go with that.
June 10th, 2012 at 3:56 am
Is NOBODY going to stoop to mention the fact that (as Jerry Seinfeld pointed out) the smell in a bookstore always makes you need to use the washroom?
I guess I just did. You can always count on me to bring the class.