Illyria
The Shakespearean Collection.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s olfactory paean to the characters from Shakespeare’s plays.
PERFUME OIL BLENDS
Presented in an amber apothecary vial.
$5.75 – $23.00
Arabian musk with two roses and a bevy of Middle Eastern and Indian spices.
Illyria
The Shakespearean Collection.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s olfactory paean to the characters from Shakespeare’s plays.
PERFUME OIL BLENDS
Presented in an amber apothecary vial.
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Sensual, robust, and silken: voluptuous red rose bursting with lascivious red wine and sultry dragon’s blood resin.
Exquisitely melancholy. The background scent to an ancient exequies. Heavy, dark and floral: a blend of roses, with a touch of amber and musk.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Through sunlit caves of ice, roses unfurl amidst dancing waves of serpentine opium smoke and amber tobacco, golden sandalwood, champaca, tea leaf, sugared lily, ginger, rich hay absolute, leather, dark vanilla, mandarin, peru balsam, and Moroccan jasmine.
‘Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
To springs that ne’er did flow
That in the sun Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.
So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died —
Quenching the fires its ashes hide, —
Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
Sweet flowers, ere long,
The rare and radiant flowers of song!
A sunlit ancient forest, dotted with wild roses, grape vine, and queenly lilies, clothed in swirls of opium smoke.
Kristin –
Othello is mostly a rose scent, but the spices keep it from being boring and one-note. It may not be my absolute favorite BPAL rose scent, but I enjoy it, and it’s different enough for it to have a place in my imp collection, though not my big bottle collection.
lani057bp –
Oh, Othello, how you bewilder me so. Out of the bottle, you’re overwhelmingly pungent with an immediate soapy quality. At first whiff, I promptly turned away discarding the thought of you. That was unfair of me though, not to give you a proper chance; so I did. Surprisingly, on my skin you mellow out and become quite soft and velvety. Still, there is something in you that I just cannot embrace. Your mellow side still exudes soapy, albeit soft and velvety, roses.
[email protected] –
I get a bright, clean, slightly piquant scent from this. There is something distinctly watery, like a men’s cologne. On me, the roses blend into the background and it’s just a bright, clean scent with unisex appeal. I’d certainly order an imp and possibly even a bottle in the future.
Nuri –
Othello and I have a love hate relationship. I’ve opened the bottle and hated it and then a few days later opened it and loved it. The variable is me so I guess it depends on my mood. I think it is the rose, it either comes across classic or oppressive almost “churchy”. I think if you love a big velvety rose that has some depth you will like Othello.