Smell Like Alan Moore's Swamp Thing

July 23, 2007 7:10 PM

Are you tired of NOT smelling like characters in Neil Gaiman books?? Well thank Morpheus, just like Alex Burgess in The Wake, your long nightmare is at an end thanks to this collection of Gaiman-inspired perfumes & colognes.
posted by jonson (50 comments total)

I believe BPAL's been featured here before, when the Lovecraft scents came out a while back. I tried a few of those and liked them ok- but personally, I'm just waiting to see if they do Sandman ones for this collection.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:17 PM on July 23, 2007

Pfft, I've been told for years that I carry the stink of Despair.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:18 PM on July 23, 2007 [8 favorites]

Pepsi eeewwww.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 7:18 PM on July 23, 2007

I can't wait for the commercial. "Hey, you smell like death!" "Yes, and you can, too!"
posted by Aversion Therapy at 7:27 PM on July 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

They all sound like Iron Chef recipies.

Except for Mad Sweeny. That sounds like Grandpa.
posted by Cyrano at 7:39 PM on July 23, 2007

What? No Mad Hettie?
posted by eyeballkid at 7:42 PM on July 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

What perfume does Desire use?
posted by homunculus at 7:43 PM on July 23, 2007

Desire needs no other scent than its own perspiration.
posted by jonson at 7:45 PM on July 23, 2007 [4 favorites]

Why is it that science fiction fans assume that their genre is of general interest to everybody with a computer? I would much prefer to never have to stumble across the whole sub-culture at all (esp. every day)
posted by dydecker at 7:51 PM on July 23, 2007

Why is it that science fiction fans assume that their genre is of general interest to everybody with a computer?

Because without them, you'd likely not have a computer at all.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:52 PM on July 23, 2007 [15 favorites]

Why is it that science fiction fans assume that their genre is of general interest to everybody with a computer? I would much prefer to never have to stumble across the whole sub-culture at all (esp. every day)

Gaiman doesn't write science fiction. Are you sure you're not lost in the wrong thread?
posted by eyeballkid at 7:57 PM on July 23, 2007 [7 favorites]

pwnd!

On preview:

x2!
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:59 PM on July 23, 2007

I'd rather smell like Fred Thompson.
posted by Poolio at 8:06 PM on July 23, 2007

Is it possible that dydecker isn't trolling with this comment? I mean, are you in earnest about this wish "never to stumble across the whole sub-culture" thing?
posted by cgc373 at 8:11 PM on July 23, 2007

I love BPAL. Mostly for my man to wear. They don't run the gamut in their olfactory palette as much as their florid descriptions denote, but they're damn good perfumes. Best to buy many imps and resell the ones you don't choose on eBay.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 8:14 PM on July 23, 2007

Why is it that science fiction The poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym walking email New York some kind of weird architecture that I don't really get baseball Led Zepplin OK, I'm not really sure about that next one Libraries again. Someone is making a play for Jess jonmc-bait Canadian Chinese port limerick non-mainstream news story natural distaster a post I haven't really read yet so I can't fairly comment on time travel fans assume that their genre is of general interest to everybody with a computer?

Because it's Metafilter, dipshit. Revel in it or go somewhere else.
posted by Cyrano at 8:16 PM on July 23, 2007 [8 favorites]

i can't seem to forget you, your black goat of the woods with a thousand young stays on my miiiind.....
posted by vrakatar at 8:21 PM on July 23, 2007 [4 favorites]

Can we just pretend dydecker didn't say what he said instead of derailing this thread further? It's completely unworthy of a response.
posted by empath at 8:28 PM on July 23, 2007

I mean, are you in earnest about this wish "never to stumble across the whole sub-culture" thing?

Yes, I am. Plenty of people like me too. I find the fantasy/sci-fi genres as hokey as you probably find romance novels. And excuse me, but this post was directed at the general Metafilter reader like they are supposed to already know who Neil Gaiman is, Alex Burgess in The Wake (whoever that is) so I'm just responding in kind.

An unusually bad post from Jonson.
posted by dydecker at 8:33 PM on July 23, 2007

Did y'all notice that all the proceeds from the Gaiman scents go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund?

It's true, they do.
posted by mediareport at 8:34 PM on July 23, 2007

Take it to Metatalk if you need to continue the debate, folks.
posted by cortex at 8:38 PM on July 23, 2007

OMG! Someone posted about something I don't know about!! This site sux!

More IraqFilter! At least in those threads everyone's an expert.
posted by Dagobert at 8:40 PM on July 23, 2007

dydecker: this is actually very handy for your cause - you need only memorise the scents, and you'll easily be able to avoid all real-life contact with this whole subculture of Gaiman fans.

Here's a tip: eat some dodgy takeaway & then visit a comics convention. The nausea, vomiting & diarrhoea will forever fix the scents in your mind.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:48 PM on July 23, 2007

Vulva Perfume: For The Woman Who Wants To Smell Like Vagina
posted by homunculus at 8:52 PM on July 23, 2007

Take it to Metatalk if you need to continue the debate, folks.

Oh man, I don't want to imagine the carnage in a MetaTalk thread debating the merits of banning all sci-fi & fantasy based posts from this website.
posted by jonson at 8:55 PM on July 23, 2007

If possible, I'd like to see ComicBookLegalDefenseFund and CDLDF added as tags to this post. It's a really important charity that does an extraordinary amount of First Amendment pro bono representation of artists, writers, publishers and book sellers.

As to Neil inspired scents...hey if it raises money for the CBLDF, how could it possibly be bad. Besides, BPAL is always doing fun stuff like this. I don't wear their stuff, but I admire their business model.
posted by dejah420 at 9:06 PM on July 23, 2007

I don't understand the mockery. How can anyone be down on something that's raised over $15,000 for the CBLDF?
posted by blueskiesinside at 9:19 PM on July 23, 2007

I adore the BPAL site, but I have yet to find one that I really love wearing. I think I like reading the descriptions more than actually smelling like them.
posted by lemuria at 9:41 PM on July 23, 2007

I've only found one BPAL scent I like to wear, but I love reading through the site. They've got a Good Omens collection too; the proceeds there are split between the CBLDF and the Orangutan Foundation UK (Pratchett's charity of choice, presumably). What "gunpowder, charred wood, smoke, and rusty nails" may smell like when all mixed up, I would be interested to know.
posted by frobozz at 9:43 PM on July 23, 2007

And if you want to smell like Gaiman himself ...
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:56 PM on July 23, 2007

Well, I'll recommend Wrath, Antony and Dee as total aphrodisiacs to this girl. I seem to prefer my own perfumes and some designer ones to anything from BPAL as a daily scent, but Bordello, Follow Me Boy and Sheherazade are all good for me to hold on to for certain moods.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:15 PM on July 23, 2007

the Orangutan Foundation UK (Pratchett's charity of choice, presumably)

Yep, he's quite fond of it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:21 PM on July 23, 2007

Gaiman characters smell? Dude, all his writing in the past half dozen years has stunk.
posted by dreamsign at 3:08 AM on July 24, 2007

More effing trolling? Or merely an easy target, with the odor set-up? So hard to tell, these days.
posted by cgc373 at 4:28 AM on July 24, 2007

Not trolling. I've quoted Gaiman at length in discussions on horrible writing. Again, not his earlier stuff, nor his joint work, like Good Omens. But the recent stuff, pee-yew.
posted by dreamsign at 4:57 AM on July 24, 2007

Which is funny, because both Gaiman and Pratchett do not like Good Omens.
posted by boo_radley at 5:34 AM on July 24, 2007

Great, now Gaiman and Pratchett are trolling the thread by proxy. ;)
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:51 AM on July 24, 2007

If you smell like the Sandman , wouldn’t you smell like the beach? And so wouldn’t you really be smelling like Kramer?
posted by Smedleyman at 7:00 AM on July 24, 2007

(don’t know if this’d be a double. But there are more than a few black phoenix alchemy lab posts on mefi. Just pointing it out, don’t really care enough to flag or even finish the comm
posted by Smedleyman at 7:03 AM on July 24, 2007

For more bitter, cranky invective about these (wonderful) scents from a (wonderful) company, see here.

I love Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, despite Certain MeFites Who Are Best Friends With My Boyfriend Making Comments About The Only People Who Like It Being "LiveJournal Trauma Mamas." (You know who you are).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 8:51 AM on July 24, 2007

But there are more than a few black phoenix alchemy lab posts on mefi

Really? Because a search for the phrase "Black Phoenix" turns up zero posts, and only one comment.
posted by jonson at 9:15 AM on July 24, 2007

As near as I can tell, there's been one other post, and two references [1, 2] in askme comments. So no, not really "more than a few".
posted by cortex at 10:02 AM on July 24, 2007

Heh. Plus that one that yahoo found that google didn't.
posted by cortex at 10:03 AM on July 24, 2007

And if you want to smell like Gaiman himself ...

...wear a black leather jacket for 30 years.
posted by Sparx at 10:25 AM on July 24, 2007 [3 favorites]

Which is funny, because both Gaiman and Pratchett do not like Good Omens.

Get out. Really? Well, I suppose the final product doesn't fit solidly within either of their styles. Were they happy with it when they wrote it? This came from interviews, I take it? I think that's fascinating.
posted by dreamsign at 11:57 AM on July 24, 2007

Tsk. Such a lack of attention to detail in my offhand comments.
I’ll try to use less invective when parenthetically commenting how little I care that I’m vaguely aware of seeing something before.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:02 PM on July 24, 2007

>>> Gaiman and Pratchett do not like Good Omens.

Really? I don't think so. Not Neil, anyway.

I saw Neil speak at Dragon*Con some years ago. Naturally, questions about Good Omens (how the work was divided and the possibility of a film) came up. He answered them just as he would for any of his works, not a hint of bitterness about it. His only real regret was that he and Terry would probably never get around to a sequel.

Now, that being said, his experiences with potential movie versions of Good Omens and Sandman have made him incredibly untrusting about the whole Hollywood machine. When I interviewed him for JIVE in 2003, he was working on MirrorMask with Dave McKean, but his feelings still hadn't improved overall.

JIVE: So does this mean your opinion of Hollywood has improved? I've read the stories of you and Terry Pratchett shopping Good Omens around.

Neil: You have to understand that at that time it had already been bought by Hollywood, and we realized this might've been a mistake. Now, has my opinion of Hollywood improved because of MirrorMask? Not really, because MirrorMask was presented to both Dave and I as a trade-off at the beginning. And it really was a trade-off. And the trade-off was "You guys make us a $100 million fantasy film for $4 million, and we will stay out of your hair."

With Stardust coming out soon and Beowulf imminent, his opinion change even further.
posted by grabbingsand at 6:34 PM on July 24, 2007

... his opinion may change even further.
posted by grabbingsand at 6:34 PM on July 24, 2007

BPAL is fabulous stuff, even the scents you might think sound odd. I love their sense of humor, evident in most product descriptions. You have to actually try the stuff.. many smell odd in the bottle but once you have it warming in the skin, the perfume notes start releasing.

Namaste and Mata Hari are two of my favorite scents but I happen to like roses and they both have plenty.


I certainly appreciate BPAL/Gaiman supporting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Every year at DragonCon I make a point of going by the CBLDF table to donate.

Hey bitter girl, if you boyfriend doesn't like the LTMS, tell him to quit reading them! If everyone ignored them and quit feeding their egos, they'd go find another sandbox to play in. One can only hope, anyhow.
posted by keptwench at 7:12 PM on July 24, 2007

Hey keptwench -- not my boyfriend, but his best friend... boyfriend hasn't the time to keep up with ANYTHING on the internet these days let alone them. Bah!

I'll have to check out Namaste and Mata Hari. Alice, which is rose and carnation (my all-time fave combo) is the closest thing I've ever found to Roma, a Body Shop perfume oil I wore for years -- except it's better! :)
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:33 AM on July 25, 2007