Titania

BPAL's Titania is part of the Illyria series, a series of scents inspired by the writings of Shakespeare. I bought an imp (sample) of it because I am rehearsing for Purcell's The Fairy Queen which is in fact Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream cut up into parts connected by music that fits the theme. It is a semi-opera which for some time was the English compromis between the Royal wish for opera and the English aversion of the French idea of a play in which people do not speak but sing. 


The name Titania for the Queen of the Fairies was not used before Shakespeare. In traditional folklore she has no name. Shakespeare took the name Titania from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which it was a name for the daughters of the Titans. After Shakespeare named the Fairy Queen, others (Spencer, Goethe, Tennyson), used the same names for her and her husband King Oberon.

Black Phoenix's Titania is a mix of nocturnal scents, probably for the same reason why Titania is often pictured while fast asleep. She then was enchanted by Puck who took this order from his master Oberon. She would fall in love with the first person she would see when waking up, which was the mechanical Nick Bottom who had been given an ass head as part of the scheme.

A nocturnal bounty of fae dew-kissed petals and pale fruits: white grape, white peach, iced pear, musk rose, sweet pea, moonflower and snapdragon.

The scent started out rather faint but grew in strength until it was rather penetrating and had me wondering if this was something that I could like. I am not sure what the penetrating scent was, as most of the notes mentioned must be accords because there are no essential oils of grape, peach, pear, snapdragon or even sweet pea. But in fact the perfume is rather fitting for the strong willed Titania: the lightness of the fairy is deceiving, after a while she shows her real strength.