cassie

In bottle: Oranges and cloves, like the cloved oranges that I use to scent my house at Christmastime. On skin (wet): Lots of cinnamon, with a hint of the orange and clove. I don't smell any peach or patchouli yet. Dry down: Cinnamon, with a hint of peach (almost the way peach schnapps smells to me). In the bottle, I was really excited about this scent. However, most peach scents are too sweet and cloying for me, and this one was no exception. If it had stayed orangey on me, I might consider keeping it. Of course, my skin always, always amps up cinnamon as well. This one is going in my swap pile.

In the bottle: Very strong aquatics, tempered with a touch of Spanish moss (?). Not quite sure what Spanish moss smells like, but I know I didn't smell any evergreen or cypress. Wet: Whoa, this is strong. I'm still getting the deep aquatic notes, now with a wee bit of florals mixed in. I really, really like this scent. Dry down: Aquatics, mixed with flowers, and what I'm thinking is Spanish moss. I'm a huge fan of Beth's aquatics, and this one does not disappoint. I'm glad I didn't detect any evergreen or cypress in the scent, since those are two notes that don't mes well with my skin. All in all, I think I have a new scent to put on my top ten.

In the bottle: Pure mint. It reminds me of the "wintermint" gum that I always chew--not a pure peppermint or spearmint, but more of a generic mint. Dry-down: Softening mint, with a hint of lime coming through. Unfortunately, I can't detect even the barest hint of lavender, which is my favorite Lab scent. After 30 minutes: The mint is gone, replaced with a slightly lime-tinged herbal scent. It reminds me more of freshly-cut grass (which of couse I'm allergic to), so I will be adding this into the swap box. All in all, it's not a bad scent, but it's not for me. The Lab did succeed in creating a "green" scent, with the mint and lime and herbal/grass scents, however. Hopefully someone who does enjoy the scent of freshly cut grass will try this and enjoy it.

I was a wee bit leary of trying this scent at first, since the only other BPAL scent I've tried that had violets as a note was Utrennyaya, which ended up turning into super-powerful, overpowering violets, reminding me of my grandmother's perfume. Luckily, Queen Gertrude was completely the opposite--the violets didn't really come out until dry-down, and it mingled with the delphinium and chrysanthemum. I really liked the results, and this perfume makes me feel like a powerful woman--the scents are feminine, but not the wispy, fading into the background feminine. This was more of a kick-butt businesswoman feminine--I could definitley see myself wearing this with a crisp business suit on days I have meetings and the such, or on days when I just need to project a little more power than I normally do. I will probably even consider getting a 5 mL of this (which I rarely do with GC scents).