Perfume Pen Pals: B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful Breath of God



Katie

Read Tania Sanchez's 5-star review of Breath of God by B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful, and then put some on. Please??? I sent it to you over a year ago. I'm dying to hear someone else talk about that one.

Breath of God scares the heck out of me (just like God used to do). If it's truly the breath of God, then I say God ought to lay off the cough syrup.

Dan



Dan

Breath of God is the bottom of my dance tote bag, Autumn 1978: brand-new leather ballet slippers, maybe worn once, mixed with leaves I picked up off the ground, and a handful of Wint-O-Green Lifesavers that fell out of the roll my mom gave me.

Katie



Katie,

Wow, leather, canvas, leaves and Lifesavers. I get all of that. You're good.

But if I don't try very hard, like squinting at a painting to make it blurry, I'm reminded of having the flu, Vicks VapoRub smeared on my chest and my mom forcing me to swallow down tablespoons of brown medicine that's been sitting in the closet since the Eisenhower administration.





But it changes, it moves, it's a shifty little thing. I had a friend over on Saturday smelling my various perfumes, and she kept going back to Breath of God. She was fascinated by it. I still haven't dared wear it out of the house, but maybe this week.

Dan



Dan,

...and the one time I wore the brand-new ballet slippers, I had rubbed Ben-Gay on my feet. That's Breath of God.

Katie



Dan,

For some reason that last part, though it says 9.33 p.m., landed in my inbox at 4.33 a.m. And reading about someone rubbing Ben-Gay on her feet at 4.33 a.m. can put me in a very dark place. Thank goodness I wasn't awake for it. Does Ben-Gay do anything? I think it's one of those turn-of-the-20th-century medicines that managed to slip past modern science and double-blind studies, and now we just assume it works because it smells like it's working.

That's Breath of God: it smells like it's working.

Dan



Dan,

I sent it 30 seconds after my first Breath of God impression (it was supposed to be read as a continuation). It's when I realized the Wint-O-Green Lifesavers were really a menthol bomb. And you realized that, too, because you got the Vicks VapoRub. Ben-Gay, Tiger Balm – they all work on sore muscles by increasing blood circulation. And by summoning tingle elves.

After all is said and done, interacting with Breath of God is like your description of squinting at a painting to make it blurry – too much work to force disparate elements to coalesce. It's high-maintenance and a little annoying. But 10 hours in, you're smiling.

Katie



Katie,

Having once lived with a biologist for three years, I can spot a non-scientific explanation a mile away. I don't know that applying a lotion to the skin can possibly impact blood circulation. I suspect most of these products are just packed with menthol, which heats the skin's surface and gives the illusion of relief. Though I guess when it comes to pain, illusion is just as good as reality. And tingle elves.

One thing I will say about Breath of God is that it smells better on than it does out of the bottle. Out of the bottle, it smells like something Doc Holiday kept on the shelf to numb up patients' gums before he'd yank out their teeth.

Dan


UPDATE: All of your favorite B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful perfumes, including Breath of God, are now rebranded as Gorilla Perfume and available at Lush.

13 comments:

  1. This pen pals installment should be called "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Breath of God". Of all of Tania's reviews, this is the one that puzzles me the most. My opinions about it, though, on other blogs, drew more arrows than St. Sebastian. Maybe I just need to stop worrying, douse myself, and avoid open flame for 10 hours...

    ReplyDelete
  2. So... God has stinky breath, huh? (Eek, even as I typed that it clouded over. Tingle elves, save me.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Can you even find BNTBTBB (?) anywhere anymore? I thought they had clearanced them out.:( I always wanted to try Ladyboy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. IIRC, Tania also loves Esprit de Tigre, which is supposed to smell like Tiger Balm. Seems like maybe she just has a thing for menthol? I've never smelled BoG, but Angel has enough camphor for me. I don't need to enter the Halls of Medicine.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Kitty, yes, they were clearanced out but I believe the line is now coming back. And Elisa, Esprit du Tigre doesn't come close to edginess of Breath of God. It's like Breath of God after finishing school.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Kitty, thanks for the nudge - I've now included "where to (potentially) buy" info on the post. BNTBTbB is now back in the guise of Gorilla Perfume, which is a brand-within-a-brand at Lush. The GP website states that some of the BNTBtBB scents will be re-introduced shortly.

    Also, look out for a BNTBtBB gallery event in NYC at the end of Sept/early Oct.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dan, I'm thinking Breath of God's mom tried to enroll it in finishing school, but it got kicked out after being caught smoking by the dumpster one too many times.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks, Katie! That's exciting to know. I hope by "early August" they mean "now."

    ReplyDelete
  9. Kitty, judging by the lack of info on their website, I think they mean "whenever they damn well feel like it".

    ReplyDelete
  10. I sent a swapper a sample of this and in a moment of mischief labelled it: "Breath of Dog".

    ReplyDelete
  11. I have to confess, I kinda like Breath of God. Perhaps because I spent a lot of my childhood slathered with Tiger Balm. But Breath of God also has that murky, almost animalic vetiver that shows up in, say, Onda or Manoumalia. But it's given the Lush treatment by BNTB2BB, which transforms it from menacing to monstrous.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Jarvis, "from menacing to monstrous" sounds like it went from lurking to pouncing.

    ReplyDelete