The Perfumed Garden

[sarahmarie]

The Perfumed Garden for the Soul’s Recreation. This scent is based on a venerable Tunisian perfume that was used to excite the senses, inspire sensuality and inflame passion. Myrrh and Moroccan jasmine with apple peel, Indian sandalwood, myrtle, quince, citron, and thyme poured over soft musk.

The Perfumed Garden started out pretty nice on me - the myrrh was a bit strong, but the gentle, fresh, exotic fruit smell was very nice. I think I smelled quince, and I think I liked it! Unfortunately, the myrrh takes over completely on my skin, turning this into a pretty one-note fragrance as it dries down. This would be very pretty on someone else's skin, but on mine it isn't going to work out. Edited November 18, 2007 by Shollin

[tinyvulture]

So much jasmine! I like jasmine sometimes, but it’s too much for me in this blend. I really can’t smell too much else. A little bit of tart apple, and a touch of musk to soften and warm. But mostly, it’s jasmine. I can’t smell my beloved myrrh and sandalwood at all, so I’m going to sell this and let someone else give it some love.

[blackrayne]

This is the first of the V-Day scents I got to try on my skin and I am in love. It's sweet and juicy, soft and flowery, and totally sexy and seductive all rolled into one. I've had a lot of problems with scents going wonky and powdery on me lately, but this is pure yumminess. I can't stop sniffing my wrist because of how yummy this is.

[bifemmefatale]

Fruit and jasmine! The fruit dies back pretty quickly, leaving mostly the jasmine with a bit of citrus and sandalwood to make it go soapy. Overpoweringly sweet florals. Not liking this much. Fooey.

Edited March 28, 2006 by bifemmefatale

[harmonyfb]

Jasmine. Pretty much single-note for the first couple of hours. Now it's backed off enough that I smell the myrrh, but still... Not for me.

[dragonryder]

Not too sure with this one. The fruit and flower are swirled like a two flavored cone. Not one, not the other, but switching back and forth in scent. Nice, though.

[savage_rose]

The Perfumed Garden:

 

In the bottle: Sweet, a little bit sickly so—lethargic, bed-ridden floral. Getting the coffin picked out and ready kinda sickly. Nice, but with an afterthought of ewww. Very strong. Don’t ask me why, but is just screams of unwashed naked, depressed woman. Gwyneth Paltrow, pre-oven-nap in Sylvia. What IS that?

 

Wet: Floral, languid but more lively than I expected. Kind of a moderate-paced floral, fruity fjord. Demure, subdued but not depressed. And that note that seemed so yucky seemed to disappear straight away. Sweet! But not too sweet. And...a little foody. It makes the tip of my tongue tingle.

 

Dry: the icky note came back, but more mature and ready to commit. I smell the jasmine, I think, I think that was the note that seemed so objectionable in the bottle. Much better than in the bottle, by a lot. Although, does this say I am a naked, depressed woman? Hmmm. We’ll see how this works on the husband.*

 

The Verdict? An optimistic thumbs up. Life is full of surprises, and I’m glad I took a chance on this one .

 

*Mmmm, it gets his seal of approval!

 

Edit: I just tried the 2007 version...while the first one was Jasmine-Jasmine-Jasmine, it's an afterthought in this blend. It smells a lot different to me.

Edited March 1, 2007 by savage_rose

[k00kaburra]

In bottle: Lots and lots of florals, but none of them distinctive enough for me to identify. It's like sitting in a garden (duh) with an incense burner filtering fragrance into the air with your lover as the sun sets in the west, and feeling just a little bit overwhelmed by it all.

On me: Man, jasmine overpowers again. It's weird - the BPAL jasmine rarely ever works for me, but I don't have half the problems I hve with it anywhere else. It's a pretty jasmine but it just takes over the blend and forces anything else to vamoose! This is a fast-fading fragrance, too; I only just applied it five minutes or so ago and it's already nearly disappeared from my skin.

[Miss Lynx]

This is a very, very pretty, and very perfumey scent, as the name suggests. It's strongly floral -- more so than you'd think from looking at the list of notes -- but with some underlying layers of complexity that give it depth. It smells like you'd expect a high-end French perfume to smell, not that I have a whole lot of experience with that sort of thing.

 

It would be absolutely lovely on someone who liked floral scents and more conventionally "perfumey" perfumes. Unfortunately, that person is not me. I can admire the artistry in scents like this, but they're really not the sort of scent I feel comfortable wearing at all. I will be regretfully passing this on to someone more floral-friendly than I am.

 

Grade: C+/B-

[LadyMedb]

This stuff smells really sweet and lovely - a true jasmine scent, sweet and not soapy, with drunkenly sweet apples. The Perfumed Garden contains a lot of sugar, but enough spice to keep the thing from sillaging off into the stratosphere without taking you along.

 

My only real gripe is that it could, I suppose, carry more body for the sweetness, but the candied jasmine scent goes really well with my skin, and it gets me a lot of compliments! When I want a light Spring or Summer scent, this is what I'll be sure to reach for now - and I'm sure my husband will appreciate it. I consider myself lucky I got this as a free decant, even if it meant I had to go out of my way to grab a full LE bottle. I may have never tried this lovely scent on my own!

 

The Perfumed Garden taught me that some girly scents are wearable for me (fruity florals are usually bane for me), and even worth falling in love with! It's a really pretty, versatile, wear-anywhere little bit of magic.

Edited May 5, 2006 by LadyMedb

[chapatti]

First whiff: hmm, light, slightly fruity.

 

Drydown: this is beautifully blended, a pretty, ever-so-slightly powdery floral brightened by a tangy fruitiness from the apple peel sparkling at the front. I'm quite amazed, because "jasmine" in a description always forebodes an invariable sour pee act on my skin... except here, the jasmine is absolutely tame, very present but not obnoxious, actually close to a flower smell, for once, and it doesn't stampede upon every other note in sight

I can also tell, in the background, a soft myrrh note, and a delicate hint of mellow sandalwood. I love how seamlessly blended this scent is, it's really lovely.

The end of the drydown is mellow, languid and fruity.

 

Verdict: surprisingly lovely! Like a good number of the Lupercalia, apparently, this is a beautiful, complex and extremely well-blended scent. The apple peel and citron combo give it a delicious, sparkly twist, it's much more than a simple floral. BPAL jasmine haters should give this one a try, to witness the amazement of a jasmine that works

 

8/10

[HennaFairy]

bottle:

floral! (what can I say I don't know my floral notes… hehe)

 

wet:

floral! But - BUT - not too floral for me. YAY! Light blend of floral notes

 

dry:

oh that's jasmine! Now I can "pull" out that note. yay a pretty floral that I like!! A bit of fresh green in it helps a lot.

 

overall:

I love it! Although I may sacrifice some of this to enable my mother… <evil grin>

 

rating: 8/10

Edited May 8, 2006 by HennaFairy

[Melantha]

In the bottle: I can really smell the apple peel, along with some floral, which I can only deduce is the jasmine. I want to slather it on.

 

On: The apple peel almost disappears, though it's still barely there in the background. Now I smell the florals, and the myrrh comes out. Nicely balanced, though, and very sexy.

 

Drydown: The apple peel is back, but everything is still blended so nicely! I can see wearing this when a floral perfume would be expected, but I want something not so "girly".

 

:D

[eviltemptressdq]

mmm... floral! apple with jasmine... The jasmine is light, and doesn't take over right away...

 

Unfortunately, the 2nd time I wore this it turned into my "typical" scent involving jasmine: It turned into a Jasmine SN. LOL.

 

I LIKE this! but, well, my skin just loves jasmine too much... i have about 10 scents probably now that all smell the same on me. hehe...

[themerrybaker]

I've had some bad experience with the jasmine scents, but Perfumed Garden blew me away with tart floral goodness.

 

The jasmine plays off really well against the apple and quince; the thyme probably makes it aromatic, and I'm not sure what the myrrh is doing, but the overall experience is wonderful. I've been reaching for this one a lot.

 

Perfumed Garden reinforces my observation that the Lupercalia update was the best ever.

[edenssixthday]

The Perfumed Garden - I’ve been foiled again by my dastardly nemesis, jasmine. In the bottle, all I smell is an absolutely gorgeous floral blend, but the instant it touches my skin, the jasmine is very evident, and the longer I wear it, the more and more my skin amps up the jasmine. It’s still softer than jasmine usually is on my skin, but it still may as well be a jasmine single-note on me. It’s just awful on me. It’s also incredibly potent, and the tiniest drop of it could fill a whole room with fragrance. I am so sad because this one had so much potential, but the jasmine ruined it for me. I will be getting rid of my bottle.

[theseagrows]

this is a light and sweet fruity floral. not too cloying, but very sweet. it has a slight commercialness to it. a pretty light summery floral. something in this is really familiar- jasmine or honeysuckle, which are both on my 'eh' list. this isn't really my thing, so i will probably swap it.

Edited June 21, 2006 by theseagrows

[provocateur]

In bottle: Grandma? Uh-oh

 

On skin, wet: Spring florals, very lovely with a hint of underlying... I'm guessing this is what happens when apple peel and sandalwood intertwine. I'm liking where this is going.

 

On skin, dry: Damn you jasmine! No, really. I'm back to smelling like grandma *headdesk*

 

Conclusion: Old lady and spring florals are just not my thing. 2/5

[rosetta]

In the vial: light, a little bit of musk? promising, as I usually like musk...

 

...but on me, the scent somehow reminded me of Dabur hair oil, which I must say it's not a very attractive scent... So, off to someone else it goes.

[Summerpixy]

This was so promising, the apple peel might have been able to tame the myrrh, but my skin pumped that dreaded note up so much the poor apple was lost in the process. I sold my bottle, it just didn't work on me the way I wanted it to.

[juniperus]

Bottle: all of the notes are a jumble - I can pick out the apple and quince separately, but barely.

Wet: fruity and floral with hints of darker beneath that hasn't fully appeared.

Dry: sandalwood, myrrh and to a lesser extent, the musk, are all in play. the greenness of thyme is less present than I hope it might be. for a fruity blend I'm finding this really lovely on me.

Later: very different from things I usually like a lot - this is a lot like imp in that the fruit aren't getting strange on me and those notes are working really nicely with the darker elements. I wouldn't mind more of the sandalwood, but at least the jasmine isn't going totally out of control - it either almost entirely disappears or goes whole-hog. A lovely keeper.

[indicolite]

Wet: Perfumed Garden, I thought all your notes agreed with me, why does the fruit smell...rotten?

 

Dry: Actually I rather like the Indian sandalwood that comes out: it has to be Indian sandalwood, it can't be anything else.

 

This is an alright scent. But it does not really make me go ga-ga and it has a very frightening wet stage.

 

I'll give it a chance to grow on me, or else for sale it goes.

[sofiaviolet]

I hate apple in perfumes. It always smells icky - Delirium bugged my allergies, and The Perfumed Garden smells faintly of urine. I'm actually kind of afraid to put this on my skin...

 

If anything, it's getting worse. This may be the most unappealing perfume I've ever smelled.

[mountainwitch]

Wow, this one's sweet and strong; "potent" really is the perfect word for it, as edenssixthday mentioned. I love the apple, which is a note that I can definitely pick out, and I generally do well in floral-fruit-musk blends. Perfumed Garden wasn't one of those blends for me, however. There's too much sweetness, especially of the jasmine, which my chemistry tends to work too hard anyway. It was definitely powerful--until about the third hour, when it took its quince and went home.

[portalkat]

This one of the first bottles that I ever owned and I bought it from the forum.

 

Sniffing from the bottle - Floral with some kind of odd fruit smell, but I never let the smell from the bottle deter me.

 

Wet on skin - Smells pretty much as it did in the bottle, still floral with a sort of sickly, "going off" kind of smell.

 

Dry on skin - I think that it's the quince that I'm smelling because I've had quince in tea and jellies before and it smells similar. Usually, my skin amps florals and I almost wish that were the case here because then it might cover up the quince.

 

I had high hopes for this because I love musk and sandalwood, myrrh, fruits and herbs, but the quince kills it for me.

 

I tried layering it with Snow White and it helped a bit. The sweetness bumped up the apple peel and the quince and freshened it up a little. I'm rather tenacious so I will keep looking at layering possibilities.