Ochosi

[ouch!]

... His ofrenda is the soft shea he shares with Obatala, forest herbs, and sprucewood arrow shafts.

This is interesting.

I can smell the shea definately and the way I can describe it is similar to the milk note in things such as Milk Moon etc. Except that it's lighter. That's one part.
The other parts of this blend smell like herbs, a bit woodsy and I'm getting a major tropical vibe going on too. And I think I can smell fig? It's got that kinda...pele, manila tropical vibe like I said..and fig. All with an underlying tone of the shea/milk lite.

The wood gets more prominant as it dries though..and it get's a little plasticy sweet. Now I'm thinking there's some sort of berry in here too. Oooh this is a morpher and I like it.

It fades more and just becomes a sort of plasticy berry smell. Which I like..

[ephemera]

This was a frimp from the lab. "Green" scents generally don't work on my skin, and sadly this was no exception. This turned soapy almost instantly.

[rayvn1]

Huh! Very "green fern" smelling. Reminds me of Apothecary just more medicinal. Nice, but not something I need a whole lot of.

[Aldercy]

Wood notes (blackly sweet), dry evergreen, and a tinge of musky ozone/slush. Possibly masculine (some note keeps reminding me distantly of Calico Jack), but kind of ambiguous. Ochosi doesn't seem heavily herbal to me, and I don't smell much shea-- it's more water, incense, and northern forests. It's so fascinating to me that many people have found this oil creamy-tropical. Go figure. It feels very ancient to me... an ice age sort of scent (yay Cro Magnon perfume). I like it.

[jwhxtna]

IN THE IMP: Very strong pine-ish smell, with a hint of creamy sweetness behind it.

 

WET: The spruce and herbs are strong, with a hint of sweetness behind them. Very dark green.

 

DRY: Still strong spruce and herbs, with a touch of sweetness. Wood scents and I just do not get along.

[crebbsgirl]

On me, this was soft and fuzzy. The shea lends a creaminess and there seems to be a herbal green vibe going on here. It's very reminiscent of summer meadows. It's very soft and light, and warm. I like it, but I don't often reach for these types of scents. It's a little too "clean" for me.

[angelicruin]

Inside the imp, I'm detecting mostly herbs and something vaguely sweet.

 

Wet on my skin, this is a soft, somewhat sweet herbal green scent. The more it dries, though, the more it develops a "soapy" quality to it.

 

 

[tajana]

I got a testable sniffy of this... I couldn't smell much in the vial, so just I slathered on all the remains and hoped for the best! Wet, it's herbal and softly evergreen with a creamy shea butter base. It's fresh, leafy, grassy, with twigs and green wood... fresh, cooling, and sweet, with a gentle creaminess that melds in and softens all the edges perfectly. The throw is chilled and green, a bit "watery", but it works here. After half an hour it's still definitely present close to my skin, but the throw is pretty minimal. It's an interesting green scent, complex, a bit woody, a bit watery in a just-rained-on forest clearing sort of way... it's quite pleasant, but I'm not desperately in love. I wouldn't pass up a full imp, but I don't need a bottle. At the same time, I'd definitely recommend this to someone looking for a unisex fresh, clean, green scent.

[mgrazulis]

Onset of herbs with an astringent lemony background. The lemon recedes into creamy shea with a light spruce undertone. Unusually soothing...with the warmth of softly spiced wood.

 

A gentle scent...it won't get you noticed. Fabulously unisex!

 

 

[redderz]

In the imp: Woody and herby.

 

Wet: Getting an aquatic note now, but it's a bit too woody and green for me.

 

I'm not really a woody/herby fan, but I think it would be good if you do like wood scents.

Edited August 31, 2009 by redderz

[Diva Urd]

Vial: Woody freshness - it actually reminds me somewhat of "TP'd Trees" - might this be a GC replacement? *gets starry-eyed*

On: The same scent - fresh and woody, maybe with a bit more green thrown in. Cooling and comforting, an almost sweet, outdoorsy green, but not an evergreen green. It is like a stronger, somewhat fresher "Trees" without the paper note that one has before drydown. Yay! Please stay with me long enough so I can love you!

Later: Goes quite faint after about 3 hours, but still smells essentially the same. I enjoy this, but it would be even more awesome if it stayed stronger. Still, low priority spot on the bottle list.

[aquazoo]

Starts sweet & fruity. It mellows into an aromatic wood. I don't know what forest herbs are, but I want to plant some! It maintains the sweet overtone, sweet for wood that is and not in a sense of candy.

[symphonyinsilence]

Apparently the drydown of this reminds me of the smell of my wardrobe door. Maybe I'm weird like that, but I love strange nostalgic smells. I'm guessing it was sprucewood? It also smells like something else, but I can't put a finger on it. I'd totally buy a bottle if it didn't have the shea or the fruity top note which I didn't like.

[skylarkza]

In the imp: A tart fruit. Can't quite place it... almost like kiwis and nectarines... inside a wooden crate! A yes, their smell is being supressed slightly, but not terribly effectively.

 

Wet: Fresh and clean. Still citrussy, but now it smells like a grapefruit shower gel.

 

Dry: Citrus wood polish and wood.

 

A while later: Wood and cream. An odd combination, but pleasant and only very barely there. Nice for a scent when you don't want it to be that noticeable.

[FathomBelow]

Yet another freebie from the Lab!

 

In the imp, it smells sweet and fresh, but fresh without being tart. I don't recognize the individual components at all.

 

On my skin, as the perfume dries, the sprucewood comes out more distinctly - it has that sweet-dry, woody, dusty scent that Christmas trees used to have when I was little. It's a little sweeter than that though - maybe from the forest herbs or shea butter? But I have to say, I don't smell shea butter at all (although, granted, my only experience of it is L'Occitane shea butter lotion).

 

This would be great as a room scent. Overall, a pleasant surprise! Especially as the previous freebies haven't been working out for me.

[Seismogenic]

I'd been meaning to try this one for quite some time now; the fact that sales of the Orisha oils in January went to Haiti earthquake relief tipped me over that this was the time to try it. The notes in Ochosi intrigue me, as does the description - the Orisha representing the search for knowledge, and the boundary between sanity and madness? Sounds like the Orisha of graduate students to me!

 

In the bottle: Soft sweet shea with a gentle underscoring of something indistinct dusty.

 

Wet on skin: The sprucewood comes out a lot more, though the sheer keeps it from getting too dry or dominant. There's a very faint heroines behind that all.

 

Drydown: Freshly dry, the spruce and the shea hold about equal ground in the balance, and both are gentle soft notes. The herbs are still extremely subtle; I only notice them if I'm actively thinking about it. At one hour in, either the shea has receded slightly, or the herbs have become more prominent. The spruce seems to be at about the same level as it was earlier, but the other notes are more of a mixture than before.

 

Five hours later: Essentially the same balance as at one hour - soft dry wood, a hint of herbs, backed up by light sweet shea. It's faintish now, but it has been a pretty subtle scent from the beginning, so I don't think it has actually faded much.

 

End of the day: Maybe a tiny bit of sprucewood left.

 

Overall: This is a relatively simple scent, but a very nice one. It's gentle and outdoorsy and fresh. I think it'll be particularly nice for days when the weather is hotter, as well, since it's pretty light. So what this means is that getting a bottle of this was a very good call, even independent of the earthquake benefit.

[hmelt004]

If I were forced to pick a favorite BPAL, it would be Ochosi. I have crushes and flings with other oils, but Ochosi is the one I come home to at night, the one that calms me down when I'm stressed out. It is in part responsible for my surviving mumps in a Chinese hospital. The mumps wouldn't have killed me, but the stress might have.

 

Ochosi smells like sitting in the shade of an enormous tree in summer, warm and green and ancient, soothing in it's timelessness. Nothing can touch this kind of calm. This is a smooth green smell, not pungent trampled greenery, and may work for you if other "green" scents have not.

[impolight]

:::OCHOSI:::

 

Before being educated by the Lab's content of the namesake of this fragrance, the imagination went, "Eight, yes?" and ran with it...

 

The Lab's mini-bio is, of course, far superior...

Ochosi is one of those, float-away fragrances of mythic proportions.

With Ochosi, it is easy to envision the arrow's flight; a noiseless and true trajectory through the air... Where the avian and the arboreal combine for wingless flight.

Ochosi smells incredible.

The most obvious note in this is the woodsy/ root-beery fragrance that is the Spruce.

Next would be the, "Forest Herbs", which leave plenty of room in the imagination for cauldron-bound greenery.

Ochosi does have more than a fair share of Wizardry in it that is combined with the steely-eyed, sinewy, bug-eating, macho madness of a drill sergeant.

A delicious fragrance for him.

5/5!

[kunoichi]

In the vial this is a very green and woodsy scent, with a lovely sweet background note behind the greenness. On my skin, the smooth, creamy and sweet presence of shea makes itself felt and the green scents gently fold into its loveliness. After a few hours a very soft and sweet scent of shea rounds out the green herbs, in a smooth mixture of scents.

[starfish327]

very green, sweet, and almost aquatic. very light.

[Brianne]

This goes on strangely fruity for some reason but that very quickly dissipates and the remaining scent is no doubt the masculine version of Obatala. It's almost exactly Obatala except for underneath the lovely clean shea scent is a softly woody herbed background. It makes me think of a mixture of Obatala and Buck Moon, so of course I love this. Even though it's the "male" version of Obatala, much LIKE Obatala it is a very gender neutral scent and could be worn by anyone. It's very lovely.

[voorishsign]

In the imp - mmh, fresh herbs, shea, and a hint of wood.

 

On wet - Much of the same. The herbs strengthen a bit more.

 

Drydown - Oh, this is a beautiful, fresh scent Unbelievably refreshing and cool. Perfect for a hot summer day. Very green, and brings to mind the smooth, cool feel of palm leaves under one's fingers on a tropical day. Love it! Completely androgynous. Amazing. Am keeping this imp for those stifling hot summer days to cool me down

[Emera]

IN THE VIAL: Bright, green, tropical, sweet-sharp (but not too sweet or too sharp), like a sweet aquatic. Faint, lightly creamy shea in the distance. Reminds me of Mythos Mixtures Encantado, or a greener version of Blooddrop Au Bout Du Monde.

 

ON SKIN: Lovely. Fresh, bright, cool, tropical. Leafy and cleanly lush, pretty gender-neutral, don’t really get the shea. Smiling and secretive.

 

LATER: Wood notes frequently disagree with me, and this is no exception. I lose all the pretty tropical greens, and end up with an evil spruce note that starts out vaguely burnt-rubbery, and ends up like pencil shavings. (Think I've also smelled it before in Velvet.) Boo. Or maybe it’s a pencil-scented eraser. School supplies, anyway.

 

Low throw, short wearlength. I’m sad it didn’t stay as it smelled in the bottle, but I’m not sure if I would have kept it anyway, since I do already have several things quite like it.

 

[Greensleeves]

In the bottle: Pale yellow oil, soft fruity green and pine.

 

Wet: Deliciously, mouthwateringly sweet fruity pine, something like lily or orchid, possibly gardenia, yet despite this it still has a distinct greenness that is the hallmark of scents I enjoy.

 

Dry: Peppery greenness, soft, sweet fir or light balsam, delicate yet complex.

 

After a few minutes: Sweet fern, fir, soft, peppery green sweetness.

After first hour: Barely there soft fern and spruce.

 

After two and a half hours: Gone.

 

After 5 hours: Gone.

 

Final verdict: I didn't think I could find a green scent that could be this sweet. It is very pleasant and a candidate for my honourable mentions.

[meredevachon]

In the imp: Green, soft.

 

Wet: Creamy and round, from the shea, I'm assuming. And still green, fresh wood, leaves.

 

Dry: Sweet cream and green wood. Makes me want to curl up. Feels like spring. New growth, breeze through the trees.

 

Overall: This isn't a knock your socks off scent on me, more cuddly-sweet. The imp's good, and I may grab it from time to time, but I doubt I'll ever get a bottle.