littlewillow

I'm not terribly familiar with chocolate scents, but you might want to test War from the Good Omen scents. It turned to very dark, reddish chocolate-like scent on me. It might work very well to create a Royal-like scent if you layer it with a more chocolate-y scent.

Somebody mentioned that this is slightly like Manila, and I get the same impression, except that this is fresher, somehow. Soft fruityness with vanilla. Actually, this reminds me of vanilla ice cream with fresh chunks of pineapple on top. I'm also detecting something very faintly spicy - the amaranth, maybe? There's no huge difference in between the wet phase and drydown for me, it's just faintly flowery fruitiness all over. A very lovely scent, and my skin reacts to it nicely, but it's far too soft and sweet for me. Too light, unintrusive and definitely too sweet. There are some notes I've encountered earlier that persistently keep on turning into pineapple on me that seem to be in Vasakasajja, too. I do like pineapple very much, but I don't want to be smelling like it.

Got this in a swap. At first, Yggrasil turns into herbs with something sharp blended in - a bit like varnish? Lacquer? Eeeph. Reminds me of putting together my bookcase. Hoping that Yggdrasil would turn different, I decided to wait for a while to see if this would change. Luckily, it did that, because the faintl varnish-like note was starting to scare me. After drydown, the scent fades into a very unnoticeable wooden scent. Warm dry wood, with a sligthly sweet undertone. Lovely! The first half an hour had me doubting whether I'd keep this at all, but this phase made me change my mind. The scent is very elusive and light, to the point where I have trouble telling apart the scent from my skin. It's very soothing, like a sunny afternoon in a dry, dusty log cabin up in the mountains. I'm going to keep this, but it reminds me so heavily of winter that I'll most likely only use it during winter.

Initial impressions: In the imp, this is a very sharp smell of bitter, acidic, cold and strong coffee. Drydown: During the first few seconds, I got very, very sharp coffee. The coffee is practically peaking into alarmingly sour sharpness, but luckily that effect lasted only a few seconds before it faded into gentle mahongany smokyness. Wow. What a rapid-paced assault on my sense of smell. The latter scent is something I'd be happy with all by itself, but it faded away almost as soon as the coffee. After drydown: Spicy jasmine all over. A very wonderful scent, reminds me of how the souqs and shops smelled back during a visit to Dubai. Sweet, very oriental and incense-like. I still get occasional whiffs of sweet coffee and wood on the edges. I absolutely love this. Mata Hari becomes very balanced on my skin - the earlier scent of jasmine fades a bit, letting some room for vanilla, roses and mahongany. After a while the scent fades a bit, becoming mellow and not too intrusive - just enough to be there, but not too much to overwhelm my senses. Summary: Mata Hari is very elusive on me - I keep thinking that it stays spicy and oriental, but I keep getting surprised by occasional whiffs of the other notes. Layered and secretive sweetness. This is also the first BPAL scent I've tried - After reading some of the earlier reviews, I was slightly afraid of taking a risk with a scent that seems to work for some, but not on others, but I'm glad I took that risk. I'll definitely get more of this at some point.