Shango

[Ella LaRose]

… The Master of Lightning’s ofrenda contains red apples, banana, chili pepper, coconut, pineapple, pomegranate and sugar cane.

someone said this smelled like a tropical smoothie, and they were so right! now all you need is the tequila!

[brilliantcat]

In the bottle: Definite hints of the fruit and coconut, almost bubble-gum scented. I WANT TO DRINK IT.

 

Immediately after application: HOLY LLAMAS this smells good! I can make out hints of the fruits and coconut and spice and they go together so well. Did I mention this smells good? BECAUSE IT SMELLS REALLY, REALLY GOOD.

 

Warming up: The coconut and spice are more pronounced but the fruit is still very much present. Yum. Tinycat agrees, she just sniffed my wrist and licked it.

 

Fading: I am pleased to report this one is lasting very well. It's settled into a spicy, almost musky fruit scent. A tropical drink by an outdoor bonfire, if you will. It smells amazing. It's a complex scent and I keep catching hints of the different fruit notes with the spice, or the mellow coconut with sugar. YUM.

 

Faded: Slow fade and hours later I can still smell it. Less sweet fruity and more mellow with the coconut and pepper notes.

 

Overall: I would not want to wear this if a zombie apocalypse were imminent, as I would surely be consumed first due to pure DELICIOUSNESS of my scent. In any other situation, I want to smell like this, all the time. The fruit, spice, sugar, and coconut blend into an ungodly brew of awesome. It's kept from being syrupy sweetly fruity by the chili pepper. Brilliant. I LOVE IT.

[Cocoa]

It smells very fruity I see the pineapple and pomegranate coming, wet on my skin smells like a bubbly raspberry drink which I like a lot but I don't know how my skin picks a raspberry scent.

After a few hours my dad stopped by my house and told me I smell like talc and inciense and my mom said strawberry, this scent is reallt complex on my skin and I really like how it changes through the hours

[Chelse]

Like grape pop and a pinch of dryer sheet.

[Viridian]

In imp: sweet and fruity. I can't pick out a single fruit - it's many fruits, and seems complex despite being a fruit scent which usually end up smelling like single notes of whatever the dominant fruit is to my nose.

 

On wrist: the fruit resolves into a very fresh apple scent with some sweetness and greenery underneath it to keep it from dominating. Apple is a problematic note on me: sometimes I love it (Bilquis!), other times I want to love it but it turns too sharp on me (Poisoned Apple ) This is sweet with the sugar cane and coconut, and has other fruits to take the edge off the sharpness.

 

My nose is a little stuffy today so I'm not getting much of the chili pepper or, thankfully, banana, but this one was surprisingly good.

 

Dry: I get a little of a dusty quality underneath the sweet - not dusty like dirt notes, but a sense of dryness under all that fruit. It's faint - must be the chili pepper peeking out.

 

I'm definitely going to try this one again when I know I can smell properly, because it was a lot nicer than I expected and I want to know what the true throw/lasting power is. If it sticks around it could be nice!

 

ETA: on second wearing I got a lot more banana (ew) and the apple went sharp. Ah well.

Edited July 29, 2011 by Viridian

[Gateau]

This was a Lab frimp. There is no way I would ever have selected it myself because it contains banana, the Devil's Own Fruit. However, I am brave and intrepid, so I gave it a try. Also, I love apple and tropical things.

 

In the imp -- smells like a tropical fruit Now 'n' Later.

 

Wet -- it's bubble-gummy, tutti-frutti, but I can make out the apple. Specifically, a Red Delicious apple. Very crisp and juicy. Fortunately, I'm not getting anything specifically banana. There is something that smells a little like burnt sugar or vanilla adding some depth to the fruit.

 

Dry -- the burnt sugar smell (is that the chili? I don't get anything particularly chili) becomes more apparent and tempers the crazy fruitiness of it all. It all blends together into a general impression of warm, slightly off tropical fruit. Maybe it's the banana twisting it in the direction of something not quite right for me. It's not an unpleasant scent, but I can't see myself wearing it.

[Balame]

In the Imp: Aw, Shango. I tried him quite a while ago and just enjoyed him too much for immediate review. Smells like a pineapple smoothie in the imp.

 

Wet:: A full burst of tropical fruits at first, one of those wonderfully mixed ones where you can pick out all the individual notes by themselves. The apple, banana, coconut, and pineapple are all readily apparent.

 

Dry: The drydown is where you start getting the "kick" of the chili. It smokes things up just a tad and gives this more pizzazz than if it were just a sweet fruit salad, though it's still brilliantly fresh.

 

Overall: I love fruit, and Shango is literally like bathing in a fruit smoothie. Honestly though, he's just at the edge of being too sweet for me because of all the delicious scents together combined with the sugarcane, so I will probably pass him on at some point. But I will continue to appreciate him before I get another circular swap together.

[rayvn1]

I was really looking forward to this one as a leap of faith into the land of fruity bpal. I love it in the imp vial and when it's wet! It's a sweet, fruit punch (in a good way) scent without the banana I was a little worried about. I waited for the chili to kick in since that would be a really awesome pairing, but suddenly it turned on me and became very candle/slightly plastic smelling After that it grew fainter and fainter within about twenty minutes until it was gone altogether. My retest with a bit more oil had the same result. Sad! I may retest one last time before sending this one on to a new home.

[lohengrin]

In the imp: Banana. Dangit! The one note I really, really didn't want to show up. ;_;

 

On skin, wet: Slightly sugary banana. I am not pleased.

 

On skin, dry: Banana cough syrup. EW.

 

After an hour: Same as the initial drydown. Scrubbing it off now.

Edited March 28, 2012 by lohengrin

[cherrycherry]

My husband and I tried this together just now. On me it is all red apples and pineapple and on him it is all banana and sugar cane. Either way, it is absolutely deliciour and we both love it. A bottle please!!

[BoneBone24]

Wet: Gummy bears

 

Drydown: At first it's still plasticky gummy bears...then it's more of a pretty gummy bears. If I try really hard I can pick out the banana, pomegranate, and apple.

 

Dry: Spicy fruit salad...with gummy bears.

 

 

 

 

2 out of 10 bones

Edited July 2, 2013 by BoneBone24

[Aromantism]

I dislike coconuts, nor that I like the scent of food on me. So upon opening this vial I was horrified by the tropical smoothie scent. I decided to shove it on anyway and I'm glad I did. Once it dried off, the previous overwhelming food smell turned into subtle, cocoa buttery scent; while the coconut is still noticeable it is a good kind of coconut.

 

This is a product I will buy again.

[mymymai]

In the Imp (ITI): Wow, that really does smell like a topical smoothie. banana, coconut, and pineapple are the most evident.

 

Wet: Lots of pomegranate, followed by banana, pineapple, and sugar cane.

 

Dry: I get faint pineapple and pomegranate after 12 hours.

[ShannonElisabethJones]

This was really cool, and so unlike what I usually wear. Sooooo fruity at first...it never really goes away, but something a little more herbal and maybe a little threatening slides in. I like it!

[Ranna]

Before I'd even placed my first BPAL order I heard a rave review of this on a Popstuff podcast. Reading the scent description didn't convince me to order it, though, so I was pleased when I received it as a frimp.

 

In the imp: extremely fruity sweet, almost too sweet.

 

On wet: There was a pineapple soda I grew up drinking called Jupiña - that's a lot like what this smells like. It's making me feel a little nostalgic! I really, really like this. After a while it starts to grow a little more complex. I can pick up something like peppers now.

 

Dry: This is really impressive. I can see that tropical smoothie comparison that previous reviewers have made, but the spiciness of the pepper is there too. Throw is decent, but it starts to fade after a while. This is definitely going on the bottle list.

[Xue_Bai]

Frimp.

 

Imp: Yup, that's a tropical smoothie!

 

Wet/Dry: It's mostly sweet bananas and coconut with a touch of apple and hints of the other fruits, all lightly spiced with chili pepper. Reminds me vaguely of childhood summers, when my family would add lime juice and this chili powder mix to different fruits, cucumbers, and jicama as a snack. There is no difference in wet to dry for me. Throw's okay, but it settles really close to my skin after an hour or two.

 

Overall, , and the chili makes it complex enough to not just be a straight up smoothie. Still not sure if bottle worthy, but worth keeping an imp or two around during the summer.

[melrose]

Herbs and peppers - now waiting hopefully for the fruit, but it disappears into my skin before that can happen. Damn.

[themeaningofV]

On my skin, the chili pepper came to the forefront with a fruit mixture backing. Surprisingly delicious! As the chili pepper subsides, it's mainly coconut on top, with apple the most prominent fruit in the background. I really like this one.

[lucycat]

I received a frimp of Shango in my most recent Lab order, and realized that I’d never written a review of the frimp I received a year ago. This is a review of the aged frimp.

 

In the imp: Sweet, sweet pineapple and coconut.

 

Wet: Oh, no, is that banana? I loathe bananas and always have.

 

Dry: Phew: the banana fades. As this dries, the pineapple really amps very briefly, and then subsides.

 

As so many others have said, Shango smells like a tropical smoothie. Once it’s dry, it smells primarily of pineapple and coconut, which are notes I like, sweetened by the sugar cane. I don’t smell the apple, pomegranate, or chili pepper.

 

Pleasant as this is, I don’t know if it’s worth going through the brief banana phase to get to the drydown. There’s a reason I rarely drink smoothies: they almost always contain bananas. That said, the tropical fruits give Shango a fun summery feel.

[Veronica]

Very tropical--smells like a creamy, fruity pina colada.

Edited August 7, 2015 by delighted

[Malaena]

I was really hoping the banana wouldn't be prominent. I was wrong!!!

 

Wet: Disturbingly artificial banana.

 

Drying: Same with a little powderiness.

[Soupy Twist]

A homemade tropical smoothie, using whatever fruit you have to hand: leftover bananas, some apples, pineapple from the kids' lunch, some bits of dried coconut from a baking project. Juicy and fruity, but nothing special, and it's gone in 20 minutes. No chili pepper.

I will say this is an excellent banana, not artificial or stomach-turning at all. Quite possibly the most accurate and pleasant banana oil I've ever smelled. The Lab does fresh fruit notes really well.

[marilyn eyre]

If you're like me and you opened this and gagged on the putrid smell of concentrated cough syrup, let it age a few months. Because now, it;s a thick miix of tropical fruits with a touch of chili to round it out. Nice and rich.

[LizziesLuck]

I have difficulty with certain fruit nose - either my skin turns them to artificial/plastic yuckiness, or my nose just doesn't read them properly. Anyway, there is something in here that's not working for me. I suspect the banana. Apple is not great on me either. There isn't enough coconut or pepper in this to save it for me, it's a plastic fruit salad. Boo, skin chemistry! In theory, I should like this.

[VetchVesper]

I get looooots of sweet fruitiness in the imp, mostly banana and pineapple. On my skin, the pineapple really takes over and the chile starts to come out. At first I can distinctly smell the chile, but it smooths out till it just becomes a bit of warmth in the background. This is a sweet, fizzy, and warm pineapple scent on my skin. It's not bad, but it smells artificial to me, like pineapple soda or candy. Not my favorite fruit medley.