Looking for chocolate and cinnamon spice perfumes/oils.

September 9, 2009 10:23 AM

I've been wearing the Body Shop's cinnamon spice oil, sometimes layered with their chocolate perfume (Amorito) for a couple of years. I've finally run out of both and the local Body Shop tells me they've been discontinued. Now I'm looking for an essential oil or perfume with both chocolate and cinnamon notes to replace the combination that won't break the bank if I wear it daily.

I'm aware of BPAL although I've never bought from them, just tried imps I've been given. I'd appreciate specific recommendations for BPAL scents because I find their descriptions difficult to interpret sometimes. Other brands of oils are welcome; BPAL is just the one I know. On the perfume front I've tried Aquolina Chocoholics and it's OK but not quite what I'm looking for.

posted by immlass to clothing, beauty, & fashion (15 comments total)

I am pretty sure you can probably find some of the Body Shop's discontinued stuff on eBay still. At least as a stopgap measure.
posted by SassHat at 10:25 AM on September 9

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab may be a good place to start. It's all online, but you can buy cheap samples to see if it's what you're looking for.
posted by lunasol at 10:27 AM on September 9

Try these people.
posted by fire&wings at 10:29 AM on September 9

New Directions Aromatics is incredible, has both scents, and is reasonably priced. They also sell carrier oils and such. Highly recommended.
posted by cjemmott at 10:39 AM on September 9

Memoire Liquide has a few different chocolates and I think one or two cinnamons at their bricks and mortar locations, but I can't find either scent through their "buy online" link. You could try calling up the Santa Monica or New York locations and explaining what you want, but it's really nice to be able to smell everything and get it mixed up perfectly.

I've also gotten perfume oil from Etsy before. You might even be able to find someone to make a custom blend.
posted by loulou718 at 10:46 AM on September 9

A good chocolate fragrance is hard to find. My favorite is Palmer's Cocoa Butter Lotion - it's not a perfume, but it does have a wonderful authentic chocolatey smell, and it's dirt cheap.

You might also consider some of Lush's products; I don't believe they have anything that smells like both chocolate and cinnamon, but they have several things with great creamy-yummy or cinnamon-spicy scents that might appeal to you. For chocolate, try the Soft Coeur massage bar, which I've used as perfume in the past. Wiccy Magic Muscles and Pied de Pepper are both cinnamony; the latter smells like chai to me. (The one caution I have about Lush, however, is that they are cosmetic heartbreakers who discontinue great stuff all the time, and since they don't use preservatives a lot of their products will lose their fragrance or effectiveness after a year or so, so you can't stock up.)
posted by Metroid Baby at 10:55 AM on September 9

The Perfumed Court is a great go-to for this kind of thing.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:58 AM on September 9

If you try the BPAL route, I recommend Bliss for your chocoalte and maybe Wrath for your cinnamon spice.
posted by mayhap at 11:05 AM on September 9

If you're going BPAL, you might want to check out the forums at bpal.org, which has a sales forum (visible only to forum members). There's a nice (no longer available) limited edition blend, El Dia del Reyes, which was cocoa/cinnamon/coffee/brown sugar, which you might well be able to track down on the forum.

One of my favourite perfume oils is a spicy chocolate called Burlesque, from Arcana Soaps, which runs about $11.99 for 5ml/$15.99 for 10ml. Their description is The sweet, smoky decadence of a bawdy dance hall, with bold amber, spicy chocolate and the warm wood of a well-traveled stage. I'm not positive I smell cinnamon, but it's a gorgeous rich chocolate blended with spices, and I'd recommend at least trying a sample. (The BPAL forum would be a good place to look for one, and there's Livejournal communities for BPAL/Arcana/etc too.)
posted by carbide at 12:31 PM on September 9

I've only ever tried the soap - but loved it. Pacifica's Mexican Cocoa hits all the right notes, and comes in spray and solid and is really affordable. I may indulge myself!
posted by peagood at 12:44 PM on September 9

Nthing BPAL. You can also search the site by components here.

I might add that if you have cinnamon-sensitive skin, be careful where you apply it, because they use real (quite diluted) cinnamon oil! But the smell is so, so worth it.
posted by WidgetAlley at 1:24 PM on September 9

OH WAIT-- sorry to double post, but I have found another possibility for you-- try Boomslang (scroll down or ctrl + F to find.) It's the richest, darkest, deepest, spiciest cocoa scent I have ever found. If I had to guess, I would say the profile is something like chocolate + rich vanilla + cinnamon + amber + red musk.

Components are not listed, however, so you search wouldn't have brought it up, and I wanted to make sure you didn't miss it!
posted by WidgetAlley at 1:27 PM on September 9

BPAL describes Snake Oil as their most popular scent, and I can totally understand why. It has that spicy sweet smell that you're looking for, it's incredibly sensual.

As for the chocolate, I can't help you...
posted by hermitosis at 3:01 PM on September 9

You might try taking a look at Sweet Anthem. I'm not sure if any of hers are chocolate, but Vicky has cinnamon notes.
posted by Kattiara17 at 7:36 AM on September 10

Lots of best answers. Thanks for your help.

I will be ordering from BPAL and I'm checking out some of the other options. For any future searchers, a friend also recommended CENTZON TOTOCHTIN from BPAL, which is very close to what I wanted.
posted by immlass at 7:41 AM on October 17