Oya

[Tess]

... Oya’s ofrenda is a Nigerian potion of love and war, sweetened by darkest plum. Oya winiwini!

In the bottle - Very cherry and almond. There's a deeper note in there, something incense, but the cherry is so strong it's drowning it out.

Wet - Cherry, cherry, cherry. Or I guess plum.

Drying - There's the incense coming out. It's way heavier than I thought at first, a very dark incense. Black, more black than BPAL's normal darkest incense. I don't like it with the sweet cherry, to be truthful. It's jarring, uneven, and not fitting with the theme of Oya, IMO.

Dry (2 hours) - The drying stage lasted far longer than I'm comfortable with. It is now dried to a sweet plum musk, but it's quite faint.

Overall - There just isn't enough plus points to this for me to really keep it.

[MCS4096]

Hmm.. straight up traditional incense in the imp.. not getting plum yet!

 

Hmmmmmm... Still just incense. May need to do a longer time test, but I'm not sure the incense is worth it, I already have so many incense blends I love!

 

 

ETA: I figured out what it reminds me of, it smells a lot like the Caterpillar on my skin; incense and dank florals.. not terrible but also not my favorite way to wear incense blends.

Edited January 17, 2010 by MCS4096

[milica]

Nothing but inscence and wood on me, maybe pine resin that I get in Yules. And after one hour it goes sour on me, no plum at all.

Edited February 25, 2010 by milica

[SeaLady]

This is a dark, woodsy fruit scent on me at first. It dries down to a rather strong sour-wood cologne that is pleasant, but not my thing. Would be better on a boy, or a girl who doesn't usually want to smell like cake (who, me?)

[Redillon]

This smells like a lemony cleaning product. Ughhhh, on the skin it smells even more so. I had it on for 10 minutes and I just couldn't take it any more. I scrubbed it off. Not my thing at all!

[RhinestoneHousewife]

This was a frimp from a sale.

 

In the bottle: Herbal, green and plum?

 

Wet on skin: I'm getting a little lemon, some fruity floral and wood.

 

Dry on skin: It smells like a cherry wood box that has had incense stored in it.

 

Verdict: Not for me. It would smell really good on a boy and I think I'm going to use it as a room freshener.

[impolight]

Aptly named!
Oya is a sky with the blue of a Disney Hue...
This is one of those fragrances that is a bit of a stretch. While there are certainly floral notes in this, and the juicy beading of Plum, a sound generated by a New Age synthesizer for a Steampunk soundtrack would make much more sense than trying to convey this fragrance by comparing it to Jasmine.
Oya is brilliant because this IS very much a whirlwind, a color of the sky, the sensation of cold air on your cheeks as you roll in a biplane, the roar of a crowd... But with none of the Ozone one might expect from the Lab to represent atmospherics.
This fragrance is awesome!
This is a beautifully unisex fragrance; Fresh, bright-eyed, confident and liberated on her, daring, heroic, and High-colored on Him.
Excelsior!
Bravo!
5 out of bloody 5!

[kunoichi]

In the vial, this smells of a high and cool floral and plum combination; it is quite nice. On my skin, this scent takes on a dry edge behind the plum-floral, the dryness perhaps coming from wood scents - this unusual scent combination certainly emphasises love, with the sweetness of the fruit and flowers, and war, with the dry and somewhat astringent wood scent! After a few hours, this has become a soft floral scent mixed with something dry, like sandalwood, but it is now quite mellow.

[SophieCedar]

I wasn't sure what to expect when I ordered this one. It's herbal and slightly bitter with a waft of plum in the background. Some edible herbs but more rooty and poisonous smelling. maybe a waft of men's cologne.. Interesting notion. I'll have to come back to this one.

 

ETA: my chemistry has changed and I LOVE Oya now. Its deep plum and something that smells like Vanilla Fields with a touch of lily of the valley or african lily. Fucking over the moon on this one!

Edited August 31, 2016 by SophieCedar

[angelicruin]

Cherry chapstick on my skin while wet. I get something herbal that emerges as it begins to dry, but the cherry is still around as well. Meh.

[KakashiMorph]

Another frimp from my first order.

In the bottle: Very dark, sweet plum. Reminds me of candy, but I have no idea what kind of candy.

On my skin: I smell the intensely sweet, overripe plum, and that's about all I get. If it had a color it would be dark purple, the color of it's plums. It still reminds me of candy that I used to eat as a toddler, but what kind of candy escapes me. I also love that sweet purple smell.

Cooldown: Oya barely morphed on me at all; on my skin it smelled just the way it smelled in the imp, which is a first, but a pleasant turn of events, since I liked the smell in the imp. It turned very slightly powdery on me at some point, but that's alright, since it was just barely there. It faded out at about 3 hours, like most BPAL blends on me, but even 5 hours later I could still smell it faintly on my wrist.

Such a nice smell. I'm glad I tried this. The imp is staying.

[Tracelina]

I bravely ordered a bottle of this unsniffed, after it was recommended to me by the same friend who first put Bensiabel on my wrist. And I'm so glad I did. When it first goes on, Oya is very wet, juicy fruit with a bit of spice. It morphed through a brief moment of smelling like apple, and then settled into a beautiful sweet slightly spicy plum scent. This is a definite cousin of Bensiabel (my go-to GC scent)--a more feminine version that's comforting and familiar and lovely.

 

A beautiful reminder that I need to pay closer attention to the general catalog, even as shiny limited editions keep vying for the contents of my wallet.

Edited September 2, 2010 by Tracelina

[Ishtar]

When I first applied it, Oya smelled very alcoholic and a little... murky? Not bad, mind you, but rather like a big jumble of deep, darker notes. Even though there is a definite fruitiness to it, I am not getting a bright or juicy feel from it - if it was a colour, it would be a matte medium brown.

 

I am having a hard time detecting individual notes in this blend. A high-pitched floral note (jasmine? Honeysuckle?) is present at first but it burns off very quickly, letting the indistinct dark fruit notes take centre stage. If the description didn't mention plum, I would actually be tempted to guess berries, and maybe even grapes as there is definitely something wine-like to my nose in this.

 

Oya is a deep, mysterious scent. I don't think I would be reaching for it very often, but I find it very wearable, all the more so that it stays pretty close to the skin.

[Maleficium]

imp: plum, wet fruit.

 

wet on skin: rush of maracino cherry and almond. reminds me of a sweet syrup that one would use for coffee beverages.

 

dry down: berries, something musky. I can't really pick out individual notes anymore.

 

this is a fruity, sticky scent. It smells nice but it's not for me. Off to swaps you go...

[LightLikeKnives]

In the bottle, it smells like some kind of fruity alcohol, maybe like mead. On the skin, it's a dead ringer for mead. It wafts up around me for several hours, before going into a fruity musk phase, and then becomes a high-end soapy smell. Oya takes the best of several different kinds of scents and molds them together in a journey that is enjoyable at each step along the way. It's a keeper. (The description did nothing for me, which is a first.)

[Alia Kaitan]

In my imp of indeterminate age, this smells like a somewhat sharp, incesey, fruity mixture.

 

It gives me a burst of fruit when applied wet, yes, plum... but there's some others in there, too.

 

On the drydown is where this was by far the best on me: a smoky, resinous plum with a touch of woods. Sandalwood, maybe? I'm not good at picking apart the wood notes yet, but my nose is definitely catching something along those lines. The plum keeps this from being overly dry, though it is definitely on the dry side.

 

Glad I got to try Oya!

[whitsunweddings]

In the imp: I can't pick out any specific notes, but it's dark, fruity, incensey.

Wet: Quite herbal.

Dry: A herby plum thing. Didn't really work on me.

[cherrycherry]

Awwww, wish I had gotten the cherry from this! I get the incense (which is lovely) but hardly any fruit. I bought this for ritual use anyway so I guess it doesn't matter, but I do love me some cherry :/

[brilliantcat]

Pure incense in the imp. Maaaybe a hint of fruit. Wet it's incense-heavy to be sure but I also get a bit of a dirt and plant-y undertone. Uh oh, I think I detect jasmine in this and we DO NOT get along... Hmm, if it's jasmine, it's not gone that horrid cat pee I usually get. In fact, that has gone somewhat soapy. Not for me

[Aromantism]

Strong almond, strong floral, a little bit fruity. It is particularly severe, so just a little bit well do. Dries into something spicier.

[fufu_berry]

Huh, I didn't get any fruit from Oya. It went on very floral, and then a little bit of wood (a soft wood, like sandalwood) and "green" scent came out. It was sort of similar to the scent profile of Xiuhtecuhtli on me, with a tropical sort of floral underscored with incense and herbs. Unfortunately, I suspect this may have had lilies in it - my throat closed up and I got rashy blisters all over my wrists and even up to my elbows (even though I only dab lightly on my wrist). I ended up having to scrub after only about 10-15 min, so I didn't really get the full experience of the scent.

[milo]

Hmm, smells like patchouli or wood with a bit of sour pickle juice. Dries to a woody patch. I'm not getting any plum. I'm hoping this is a fast fade, as it's not really me.

[Veronica]

Something dark and spiced, sandalwood and a gentle incense. Not for me.

 

EDIT: different imp, later: Super sweet, ripe fruit--not exactly a straight plum note, almost a little cherry syrup-esque, with soft spices in the background. The overripe fruit fades as it dries, down to a lovely, slightly fruity sandalwood blend.

Edited April 8, 2015 by delighted

[RasAlgethi]

This is my all time favorite scent. I'm getting peppery plum. And it gets even deeper on the dry down.

 

It's actually quite difficult to review. I've had it for years and now the smell has so many associations with it. I don't know if I tried it for the first time today that I like it. But that's how smell goes.

[freyasfae]

This is such a strange scent. I can smell many of the notes, seemingly disparate, that many other viewers mention, but in the end it ended smell like a sort of generic BPAL perfumy scent (which of course is far superior to any generic perfume scent), but it just didn't stand out for me in any particular way.