Miskatonic University

[whataboutprom]

The scent of Irish coffee, dusty tomes and polished oakwood halls.

This is my favorite BPAL scent, and the one that got me into BPAL in the first place. A friend of mine was wearing it and smelled divine. I immediately had to buy a full sized bottle.

In the bottle, this smells a bit like artificial hazelnut coffee creamer to me, but after it has dried on my skin, the hazelnut mellows out and I definitely smell slightly musty library books and autumn leaves, along with a creamy Irish coffee scent. MU has staying power, but it's not so strong that I can't wear it to work, and when people are close, (like when greeting me with hugs,) I always receive compliments. A friend said it smells like vanilla on me, which I don't get, but it is cozy and warm like vanilla.

[Mellifluous]

In the bottle this is way sweeter smelling then actually on, which I am quite happy with. On, i get a very nice, dark, roasty, coffee. No sugar here, just that slight sweetness from the caramelization of the roasted beens. This is a perfect coffee scent on me for the first 2 hours. Then.. it goes to the dusty tomes. almost all i get is dusty bookshelf. Occasionally there will be whiffs of coffee, but when I actually put my wrist up to my nose, all i get is dust. Would have been bottle worthy, but i cant handle the extra dustiness in the drydown.

[Chanter]

In the bottle: I can definitely smell the Irish coffee and dust, and something almost hazelnut-y too. That's probably the coffee doing that.

 

On skin: Oh darn it, the dust smell is really prominent! I was seriously hoping for more of the Irish coffee and oakwood here. Rats! Maybe it'll mellow.

 

On drydown: Hmm. The dust is still strongly there, but the oakwood's peeping through, and depending on how close to my skin I'm sniffing, I get more or less of the Irish coffee. Hmm. Darn it all but I wish I liked this better than I do! The dust goes surprisingly strong on me is the only thing. I'll keep this one for the Irish coffee and oakwood notes; if anything, I'll wear it when I'm reading Spider Robinson's Callahan's books.

[Tiada]

This scent is absolutely magnificent. I tried out Elegba yesterday, and after reading al the comparisons between it and Misk. U, I knew it had to be the next one I tried (not sure why I hadn't yet, to be honest). The comparisons are right, they've got a lot of similar qualities while being very different notes.

 

In the bottle and wet, this smells strongly of Irish Coffee. Sweet and thick and rich. Nothing but.

 

As it dries, the heavy sweetness of irish coffee fades to balance with the oakwood. (AMAZING!)

 

After a few hours, the oakwood is stronger, with a hush of dust and just a whiff of the sweetness of irish coffee deliciousness. I adore everything about this! MMMMMMMMMM.

[lavenderfrost]

In The Imp: OMG COFFEE. COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE. NEED COFFEE. DO YOU HAVE COFFEE? GIMME COFFEE. COFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

 

...*ahem*

 

Immediate Application: The coffe topnote is still very strong, but the oakwood starts to come through right away.

 

30-45 Minutes Later: I SMELL GEEKY. The slightly-boozy coffee is ever-present, but the wood gets stronger, and my mind may be playing tricks on me, but I'm starting to get the dusty-old-book in there too.

 

This is almost a dead-ringer for what I imagine libraries smelled like before the 20th century. I feel like I need a stuffed leather chair by a window, and a tallow candle. And a penis, since most universities would have laughed at me and called me a silly featherheaded girl for even trying to get in back then. ^^;;

 

 

Verdict: I like. Dunno if it's 5ml!like (probably is, but I have higher priorities on the wish list), but I'll definitely be using the imp.

 

It's not a perfume!perfume - it creates a very specific atmosphere, so it won't get used as often, but I love it for its' intended purpose.

[TheFrenchWaffle]

In the imp: sweet Bailey's Irish cream, LOVE!

 

Wet: Still all Irish cream, a hint of old books-the kind you find in your neighborhood used bookstore while you wander through it with a nice cup of coffee that is perfectly brewed.

 

Dry: Hints of the Irish cream, the book smell creeps out from the soft oak scent like a book being removed from the bookshelves of an old library

 

Final verdict: absolutely, positively in love with this scent. I wish I had just trusted my gut feeling and sprung for a bottle, but there is always next time. Will defiantly buy a bottle next order.

 

Geek moment:

I was wearing this and my history professor asked me what I wearing and when I revealed the name he laughed and reached into his briefcase, pulling out an anthology of Lovecraft's works. Needless to say we had a total geek out moment.

[ajansuz]

In the imp, this was primarily Irish Cream with a light touch of oak. The Irish Cream note was very, very strong and sweet, to the point I was concerned it would be way too foody on me, but as with every scent I get, I'm determined to skin test and not judge by the bottle/imp scent alone.

 

Wet on it wasn't nearly as sweet as in the imp. Some of the coffee lifted in a nice, bitter note, and the oak amped pretty strongly. I didn't get dust so much as maybe dry papers or something. There's something dry under the food and wood notes.

 

Dry down is where it went kind of wonky on me, in the same way Calaveras did. In fact, the scent coming up is very similar. Something about most of the lab's stronger booze notes really doesn't like me. It's hard to describe except to say it's a very strong booze note, slightly bitter, slightly burnt, and not pleasant. I had very high hopes for this one. It's a pity it's a no-go with my body chemistry.

[imaginepageant]

In the Vial: Yup, that's Irish coffee. Sweet, creamy, and a little boozy. And I'm pretty sure I'm smelling hazlenut in there, too. I don't know about the "dusty tomes," but I am getting the warm woodsiness of the oakwood.

 

Wet: Booooooooze. And heavy cream. And... something just not right. This is doing weird things on my skin and I can't figure out exactly what. Burnt rubber and gasoline come to mind, but that's not quite it.

 

Dry: Still weird, and familiar - this is the smell of something but I still can't put my finger on what. I can say that it smells plasticky. And almost sickly sweet. It gives me a funny feeling in my throat. I do not like this at all.

 

An Hour Later: Nope, couldn't do it. Washed it off about thirty minutes in.

 

Overall: Clearly I am not meant to be a student at Miskatonic University. C'est la vie!

[ChipNoir]

My first review! I got an imp of this stuff, and opening the bottle, I got the imediate impression of sweet Irish Coffee, and the sort of musty-book smell that makes me think of old horror paperbacks.

 

On my skin wet, it takes on a muskier, leathery scent, but its still very nice. Just lacking that sweet note that attracted me so much in-bottle.

 

Dry down: I feel very 'adult' with this on. Sexy, stern librarian smell. I like it.

[invisible iris]

In imp: Candy corn?

 

On skin: Brown sugar coconut sticky rice. I swear.

 

Dry: The candy sugar sweetness of this has retreated somewhat in the drydown. However, it still hits the caramelized coconut sticky rice button for me. With a touch of whisky. If I really try, I can read a bit of wood somewhere in the back of it. But it’s hard. And I love the sticky rice smell, like, a lot. So I’m okay with this stage.

 

Later: Ah yes. Come with me now, if you will, gentle readers. Two or three hours in and the tomes are emerging, the sticky rice is absorbed into the woodsy brown booksyness. Delicious dusty caramelized old books, is what it smells like now. A 19th century library for dessert. Yum. I like it. The longer this has to dry and develop, the more the burnt sweetness sinks into the books and the beautiful oak, and the less foodie the blend becomes. It sticks around all day (8 hrs or so).

 

The name and concept behind this scent give me an excuse to wear it to work, so… If real-life universities smelled more like Miskatonic U, they’d be way nicer places to be.

[sparkleyturtle]

Very strong with the sweet coffee. I am not a big foodie perfume fan, so this isn't quite for me, although I like the smell of coffee (although the taste is less than I desire). It is excessive sweet of the coffee that just turned me off.

 

Nope, just not for me.

[troublehunter]

This was my first ever BPAL purchase. The notes drew me in and...

 

In the bottle:

I was physically unable to make myself hold this bottle up to my nose for more than a second, which is absolutely not as bad as it sounds. The sweetness that rises up from this bottle was overwhelming for me, but it was still a good sweetness. Just-- well, very sweet. I'm fairly certain this is simply because of the sheer volume of the perfume in the bottle because I was frimped a sample of Miskatonic U, and it wasn't nearly as overwhelming in the imp as it was in the bottle. (Of course this could be due to different aging times or any number of other things, but I do think the overwhelming-ness of the bottle was simply caused by the fact that it was a whole bottle of the stuff.) That hugely overwhelming sweet smell aside, I couldn't really find the other mentioned notes. I had hoped to get the 'dusty tomes' and I suppose the lack of it is my only complaint when it comes to this scent, but the amazing, for lack of a better term, deliciousness of the Irish coffee is more than enough to make up for it.

 

Wet, applied to skin:

For a moment or two, the sweet scent is still quite overwhelming and covers all else. Then something that seems like it could be the 'polish' of the polished oakwood halls comes out. The Irish coffee does stick around, though it's much smoother and easier to handle when applied in small amounts. It's just a very pleasant, sweet scent now and I could hardly stop myself from sniffing my wrist when I first tried this.

 

After some time:

It fades away relatively quickly, but rather than disappearing completely, this scent settles into something lighter but definitely still present. The Irish coffee is still the predominant note for me, but it's just quietly loitering on my skin rather than leaping out screaming pay attention to me. This stage lasts for hours, and it's very nice.

 

...and I wasn't disappointed! Overall, this was what the notes promised. Irish coffee dominates and I didn't personally catch much of the other mentioned notes, but I was still happy with this as a foodie scent.

[Urpflanze]

Miskatonic University isn't a favorite for me. I find it cloying and boozy. Wet, I get Kahlua. Dry: burnt caramel, coconut milk and rum (or whiskey). Perhaps I have a thing against boozy scents. I would prefer more unsweetened coffee and paper/books and library shelf/desk woods. After several hours, the sugar and booze mellow and combine and parchment or wood come out. One could mistake it for the dry, sour smell of antique books, the ones with yellowed, rough cut edges. To be fair, that is pretty amazing. Still kinda sweet and boozy for me though.

 

My tastes aside, this is obviously a winner in its class, as all the WOW! reviews testify. If you like foody scents and don't mind a little booze this is highly recommended.

[achromance]

In the vial: I smell Bailey's and maybe a hint of coffee. There's an overwhelming creamy sweetness that I find quite off-putting. Not a hint of the dusty tomes or the oakwood halls.

 

On my wrist: I tried to apply this very carefully, but the sweetness is still really aggressive. There might be some dusty tomes there, but I can't really get past the top scent enough to determine it. I'm afraid this scent just doesn't work for me. I was looking for tomes and halls with a touch of coffee, and didn't expect the the Irish part of it to be quite this.

 

Conclusion: If you like the smell of Bailey's or creamy, sweet vanilla, this is your scent.

[Unauthorized Cinnamon]

I hated this

 

The description sounded really great, but I think part of the problem is that sweet scents might sound good to me, but I actually don't like them in my perfume.

 

In the bottle: SWEET! Coffee and Irish cream.

 

Wet: Same. Overwhelming to my nose.

 

Dry: The wood and dust really did come out, but on me they combined to smell like rotten wet cardboard. The sweet Irish coffee was still equal to it, but they fought instead of blending.

 

I think this scent really delivers on its description, so if it sounds good to you, definitely try it. For me, it was a great lesson in where my tastes lie and that sometimes your skin chemistry just won't cooperate!

[calivianya]

Miskatonic University smelled nothing like I had hoped. I got a little bit of woods and sweet buttery popcorn that didn't morph at all. I would really have liked the coffee...

[Honey]

Interesting..

 

Imp: I get a waft of whiskey and cream (like Bailey's liqueur) and only a tad bit of coffee.

 

Wet: Wow. I get the same as from the imp, but much stronger is a scent that I could only describe as grains-cream-toasted bread-butter. It reminds me of Bread-and-Butterfly and ICD 37 (which, ironically, I swapped for a bottle that was accompanied by Miskatonic University as a frimp). Very.. yeah, like bread or cake without sugar with something milky, creamy, buttery. I was waiting for that anise/fennel/celery note to turn up but it didn't. Neither anything going bad on my skin, like fish oil. The more I huff, the more I get a "dusty tomes" note as well. Sadly, no real coffee note. This is rather.. nutty-caramel-toffee-cream with whiskey and something like the faintest sandalwood hint to give it this dusty "pencil shavings" note.

 

Dry: It does not go bad on my skin! Yay! It is more creamy and milky than before, and I actually get the smell of dust (which smells like anise, mushrooms and sandalwood to me). It's much more pleasant in the dry-down than in the wet stage. I will probably not get a bottle of this (since it seems on the verge of turning into a bad scent on me), but I will probably use up this imp and not swap it away.

[Grimwitch]

In the bottle: artificial creamer. Chemicals. Sour milk. No wood, no paper, nothing else.

Wet on the skin: more of the same.

Dry: even more.

 

I tried it on my husband too, in the hopes of it just being my skin. No such luck. This was just gross, enough so that we both agreed we needed to scrub it off. Off to the swap pile for you, Miskatonic University!

[ephemere]

This is the first BPAL oil I had to wash off. It was so gorgeous in the bottle -- rich, deep, dark Irish coffee -- but turned awful on my skin. It's so strange because coffee and most woods are fine on me, but this just turned into a dank, musty kind of smell in a matter of minutes, as if I'd burned off the coffee and was left with moldy, wet books. Why like this, skin chemistry?!?

 

I might end up just keeping a little bit to sniff and finding someone to whom I can gift the rest. Sigh. I had such high hopes for this one, too.

[AnyseLawsBray]

In vial: SWEET.

Wet: Caramel and lacquered wood.

Dry: Someone else mentioned 'caramelized books', I agree. Sticky & dusty. It goes very buttery on me after awhile, so it's more like a toffee popcorn ball or something. A stale one.

 

Verdict: This blend is in the same vein as Kill-Devil. It's not often I want to wear something so sweet, and I much prefer the treacle lemon sugar I get in Kill-Devil.

[Echo Unit]

Heavy hazelnut top note fades rather ungracefully into a dry, musty oaky aroma that lasts, and lasts, and lasts... and lasts.

 

Not good for me, but I have a full imp for you if you like!

[Floria]

This was a heartbreaker. In the imp, it's a delicious sweet, creamy coffee drink, but within seconds on my skin it loses all its sweetness and I get a rather flat, sort of light-brown, slightly scorched or toasted, vaguely grain-like smell. Unfortunately, *this* smell is very tenacious.

 

This is the first scent that made me wish I had a scent locket - but I'm a cheapskate, and buying an $80 piece of jewelry to house the contents of a $4 vial of perfume (which I got as a freebie, anyway) seems a bit disproportionate. I do plan on trying it on my hair and clothes, or to scent craft projects.

 

ETA: I tried this in the oil burner. I like it much better than I did on my skin.

Edited January 28, 2012 by Floria

[hanabi]

I was so excited to get a frimp of this, since I've been dying to try it for ages. Unfortunately it's not what I was hoping for at all.

 

In the vial it's very sweet, reminds me of Irish Creme coffee creamer, but not necessarily in a bad way. I get a little bit of a coffee scent underneath that when I put it on. It started off rather nicely, just like sweet Irish coffee. Then there's a light woody scent coming through... then it smells like rice. Dry, uncooked rice. I'm assuming that's the dust tomes note I was looking forward to experiencing, but all I get is this kind of dry, foody smell. With the little bit of sweetness that's left, it's kind of like a dry rice pudding, if that makes any sense at all. If I sniff really really deeply, I kind of get the dusty books and coffee and woody halls thing, but it's way too faint.

 

It's not that it smells unpleasant, and from most of the other reviews it seems to be really great on others, but all I'm getting is rice! It's not for me.

[KissleMeNow]

In imp: It's definitely predominantly sweet coffee. There's a promise of wood under it, though.

Wet: My first thought was "This coffee is very Irish." Definitely an alcoholic underpinning to the coffee and sweetness – it gets a slight creaminess. A lot of people in this thread have mentioned Bailey's.

 

I have to admit that I dashed this on before going out the door, so I didn't keep close track of things. But, sitting on the subway a few hours later, all I could think of was "Something smells good." I actually thought it was somebody else until I got off. After a few hours, the coffee/sweetness will have faded, and the wood/paper really comes out, along with what smells to me like leather. This is what smelled so good.

 

Definitely a keeper. It's slightly sweeter than I want to wear every day, but I do want to wear it often. An excellent scent for the fall and winter, I think. Also, just to note, I don't drink so I tend not to wear scents where an alcoholic note pops out – it just seems weird/wrong – but I didn't find this overwhelmingly boozy (unlike, say, Mary Read).

[Psypomp]

In the imp: Very foody; Irish coffee with extra sugar. Yeah, it smells like Bailey's.

Wet: Irish coffee and a hint of leather. The wood starts to come through.

Dry: Okay, I gave this a few hours to see if it would change at all-- but all I get is molding, dank books. The initial creamy sweetness is gone, and the pleasant leather smell has turned into decomposed book bindings. Perhaps that's the dust finally coming through? This is not the scent I was hoping for. It just doesn't work on me.