Midnight on the Midway (2006)

[eleventhousand]

Lightning splits the sky, illuminating the skeletal skyline of the carnival rides: sugared incense and night-blooming flowers.

Bubblegum, soap, and licorice tea.

[icing]

I made my first BPAL purchase back in October, and was the most excited about trying Midnight on the Midway (I could forget what other Imps I’d devoured the reviews of, and narrowed down from larger lists… and even the other much anticipated blend, All Souls, could slip my mind, but never Midnight on the Midway) – and, as it turns out, rightly so!

 

It’s gorgeous, and it changes constantly on me, but lasts, and clings, and never wants to let go.

If I shower, the hot water just magnifies the smell… if I put it on once during the week, I can catch hints, and wisps, and clouds of Midnight on the Midway everywhere into the next week.

It’ll randomly reappear in my hair, inside the hood of a favorite jacket, in basket of fresh laundry, just lingering somewhere in the air in my bedroom, by the doorway…. it literally shadows me, and nowhere that I’ve applied it smells the same as any other spot.

 

Wet, especially the first time, it scared me, it just smelled harsh, a dark, heavy, indefinable, thick chemical smell (sometimes mixed with dryer sheets), but after an hour or so, it suddenly changed… and still does whenever I apply it now, though there’s never a set pattern with what Midnight on the Midway chooses to do.

 

Midnight on the Midway might leave my skin smelling like sugared, white floral nectar… cedar (this cedar isn’t aged or worn, I get the image of freshly buffed wood, or un-trodden, fresh fairground wood shavings), or that overbearing chemical smell…or incense… not warm, comforting Church incense or cheap incense for the sake of incense, but something exotic and reminiscent of Nag Champa, sometimes dusty and ignored, or quietly releasing faint spirals of smoke… Jasmine, which can smell like honeysuckle nectar drizzled in powdered sugar (fresh, live, honeysuckle in general… the lab’s version seems to turn to burning plastic on me) on me, or simply vanish, might make a subtle appearance as well… but the majority of these notes seem to prefer lingering, lightly in the air around me…. Not in a cloud, or in a definable amount and distance from me, but just enough to catch an intriguing whiff when a breeze blows, or while I turn to walk around a corner… or even when I’m just… sitting still.

 

I can lie out in a hammock and read, and Midnight on the Midway will float all around me, sometimes vanishing, but always reappearing, and constantly changing.

 

The longer I wear it, the more prominent the powdered sugar becomes, and on the colder days, it neglects the jasmine, content to mix and mingle with that incense, alternating between dusty and smoky, and still at least a little sweet.

Sometimes I even catch whiffs of something slightly crisp and buttery (just for a moment enough to wonder if it was really there)… but not in a heavy, disgusting way… more along the lines of the slightly sugared crisp cakes I catch hints from in All Souls and Eat Me.

 

I also occasionally catch a hints of fruit, a red, purple, or generally dark one, to be sure, but it doesn’t seem to give me much of an apple reaction (apple = insta-migraine, though I did get some wooziness in these phases).

 

Midnight on the Midway is more complex than I ever imagined it would be, and even though I’ve experienced other blends, nothing strikes me in the same way/it is still my favorite blend, and I cannot get enough of it!

[lightgatherer]

Sugar and flowers. I'm not sure exactly which flowers, but flowers. After several hours the florals die away leaving a slightly musky and smoky sugar smell. I love this stage, but I'm not as fond of the floral stage. I think for my sugar fix I'll be looking to Sugar Skull as I much prefer its fruits to this blend's flowers.

[lapillus]

In bottle: bubble gum and cotton candy

 

Wet: much like the bottle

 

Dry: becomes more floral

 

Later: Almost all white florals which fade out in about five hours.

 

Summary: Fun but not enough life span or uniqueness to make me want to hunt down more then one imp.

[CiCi]

Growing up in rural Northern Minnesota, Midnight on the Midway reminds me of the scent of the night, right after a quick summer lightening storm. The days would be so hot we would be praying for a storm... and then suddenly it would hit... and be so refreshing.

Afterwards, you could smell the dewy, fragrant night flowers that always smelled sweeter after the rain. My hand smells like I ran through a field of tall grasses and mixed flowers and they brushed against me! It is simply beautiful and I think I have finally found my summer scent!

 

Thank you Beth!

[radishbaby]

When I was 7 I made up my mind that I wanted to live in an evil circus - not just a circus, regular ones gave me the heebies, but an evil one? Dream come true! And so with that spirit in mind I went ahead and purchased a full bottle . . .

 

bottle : medicine!

 

wet : oh this is pure medicine! There's a very strange note in here that's probably the incense which smells like those oils you get to put in your car. No! I command you to turn yummy on me!

 

dry down : The incense hates me! It smells like wet incense that's impossibly cold, a warmer scent is beginning to peek though just a bit though.

 

completely dry : Mmm, there we go - that was a bit frightening for a moment. The sugared part of the incense has finally made its way though and whatever Beth's blend of floral's is definitely helped mellow this out. This is incense through and through - like the ghost of something right after people have left, leaving behind them empty, trash filled walkways leading to the fair. Something very shiny and beautiful in a dark place, like finding Mardi Gras beads in the gutter.

 

over all : A perfectly ghostly, night time scent - I had such completely high hopes and for the most part they were somewhat dashed. Boo hoo hoo. Midnight is such a wonderful blend however and the more I smell it the more I fall in love. I think I'll be keeping my bottle however, I'm convinced with a little time and age this will be everything I've wanted it to be and more. So while I'm not walking away from this first try with glowing praise I'm still definitely keeping this one close and dear.

[kyrielle]

In the bottle: sticky sweet bubblegum incense. More bubblegum than incense, or maybe it's just that I'm hyper-sensitive to anything that might go sweet-gum on me.

 

On, wet: patchouli-ish, woody, and a strong overlay of baby powder verging on going soapy. I worry now that the sugar is going to nail me, although actually, there's no 'plastic' scent like I usually suffer with at least.

 

After drydown: a hint of sweet, vanilla-sugar smell, overlaying a strong wood smell (the incense, I assume; on me it turns cedar-y). And just a touch of something powdery, still. But it's faint and not quite baby-powder any more, just powder, just a little dry.

 

I'm not sure this one is for me, but it dried down a lot better than it initially promised to behave when it first touched my skin. It doesn't evoke the Midway for me very well, though, too woody for that.

[Carmencita]

In the bottle: Sugar cologne

 

On me: Flowers in a well-groomed garden and melting candy at midnight.

 

Later: If cotton candy could be spun out of booze...

 

The dark elements to this don't work on me. It reminds me of old lady perfume, if the old lady were suddenly transformed into a young woman.... and coated with booze and candy. Boy, my reviews make no sense.

[Lunaratu]

Mm, I can detect the sugar right off the bat…and something soapy? And then it turns into sugar and old incense.

 

This reminds me of an old wiccan store perhaps or some other type of sweet incense. The sugar melds with the incense almost immediately to become a very unified scent that reminds me of a sweet nag champa.

 

Nice but not an everyday scent for me though I think I will definitely enjoy my bottle. I’m thinking this would make a fantastic room scent, mmm.

 

Rating: 4/5

Edited October 9, 2007 by Lunaratu

[modernsaints]

Huh.

 

Sugary, dry incense, with... lemon? A very sweet, lemon-esque floral over it. Huh. (For the record, the madre smells it as straight-up cone incense, nothing else.)

 

It's intriguing, in that way where I keep sniffing myself, but I don't especially enjoy it. I can imagine keeping an imp on hand if I had one, but I will NEVER need a bottle of this. Ever. Really weird.

[doganddoobie]

The word that comes to mind when I think Midnight on the Midway is "sophisticated." It's one of my favorite grown-up scents: subtle and gentle and somehow very evocative of night-time. It's all soft dark incense on me, but at the same time, behind it is always the echo of the sweet playfulness of Midway. One of my favorites!

[bulletslc]

This was a spur of the moment swap and I'm SO glad I did!!!!

 

This is sweet, sweet, nag champa with a titch of foodie sugar and a light dust of floral on me!

I love incensy scents (Minotaur is a signature scent for me) but Midnight on the Midway might just take over! It lasts forever and is the ultimate foodie/incense combo.

 

I know I'll need to order another bottle before the Carnivale leaves town!

 

[500ml]

Strong floral (jasmine?) with a touch of sugar on me, I can't really immediately detect any incense, but an underlying note suggests it's still present. I'm not quite sure what to think of Midnight on the Midway, in the vial it smelled very clearly of laundry detergent and I wasn't expecting so much floral and so little incense on my skin. I'm holding onto my imp for now I think, give it a second and third try.

 

ETA: Second try: Okay, this is beautiful. Not only did I get an immediate and spontaneous compliment from my bf, but I just loved the mix of the clean flowers with the cotton candy like sweetness. I'm still missing the incense, but I'm sure I can live without it for now.

Edited August 13, 2007 by porcelain

[Sistinas]

a review of Midnight on the Midway

 

Vial ~ Sweet with a slight incense linger to it. For some reason the color purple keeps coming to my mind as I smell it. I occaisionally get color associations with certain scents and this fragrance is calling out purple to me.

 

Wet ~ On my skin, the sweetness is a bit muted, but the smell of incense is still there, but it is not in your face. Overall the fragrance has softened quite a bit and I am still unable to pick out any of the florals.

 

Drying ~ The fragrance is starting to come out a bit more now, sweetened incense indeed. Occaisionally as I smell my wrist I smell grape, or at least that is what I think I am smelling. Midnight is beginning to get a bit too sweet for me, but I will let it go through the final stages before I make a final decision.

 

Dry ~ the scent is still just sweet incense, the scent is still too sweet for me. Midnight does not seem to do any morphing, just stays true to what it was originally.

 

Final thoughts ~ I really did not care for this scent, it is just too sweet for me. I generally love incense smelling perfume, but they usually are spicy and not on the sweet side. I also cannot get the sense of grape smell out of my head either when I smell this on my wrist and it just does not do anything for me, but ick. On a scale of 1 to 5-> 1

Edited October 11, 2007 by Shollin

[taramarie]

In the bottle, Midnight on the Midway smells like a lot of sugar, some incense, and a little bit of flowers. Wet on my skin, there's no incense at all. It's sugar and flowers, sweet and heady. Drying, it smells like sugared Poisson d'Avril. There's the same Spring flowers, only now they're sugar-dusted. I can't complain, really. If I'm out of Poisson d'Avril when the Carnaval's about to leave, I'll stock up on this.

[gwynhwyfar]

I sniffed this at ECWC in June but had run out of testable skin, so this was the top of the list to skin-test this time around.

 

When I did so, there were others lingering around warning me that this went soapy. But it smelled so lovely so I risked turning into soap-freshness ... and ... wow.

 

This is true to the bottle on me, and then some. It turns into a really rich sugar-sweet incense that is lovely and intoxicating. It kept getting better and better with time and by the time I went to bed, I decided that I might well need another bottle soon because this one might go away. There is a hint of florals but it's a light thing, under the incense, though I do think that there might be carnation in based on the incense and floral scents that I get.

 

And my father really liked it, too, which is an amazing, amazing thing.

[alicia_stardust]

Midnight on the Midway is one of my top 3 Carnaval Diabolique scents so far.

 

I get a mysteriously smoky blanket that sits lightly on top of cotton candy, sugar, and incense. It's divine. On my skin, at least, it has a strong throw and it wafts around me into a nice carnaval-like cloud. The concept and art combine so well with this scent. This is a multiple bottle purchase for me. I wouldn't want to run out!

[Iceblink]

Beautifully sweet incense! This reminds me a bit of my perfume love of shame, which is With Love by Hillary Duff (shut up). This is a bit sweeter, though, and with any luck it'll be a bit longer-lasting as well. I'd like some incense that smells just like this!

[girl_android]

In the imp: sweet, slightly smoky incense

 

Wet on skin: slightly bubblegum/fairyfloss sugary incense. The bubblegum part kind of worries me, but it's gone after a short while.

 

Once dry: the impression of bubblegum goes away, and it's a lovely sweet scent. The flowers in play a very understated role on my skin.

 

I think this may be a bottle-worthy purchase before the carnaval disappears. Still being on training wheels when selecting BPAL, I did peg this as a possible straight-to-bottle purchase, but am glad that I got to try a bit first!

[Delirium1009]

In bottle/imp: florals with a smoky, ashy undertone.

 

Immediately on skin: This smells just like incense… like ashes and smoke, but sweeter. There’s a powdery note to the florals though that is a little distracting.

 

After a few minutes: This really does smell like incense… like I have a stick burning and took a big whiff. The scent is dry and powdery and makes my nose tickle like smoke would, and it’s slightly floral and sweet. The powdery note is still there but now I recognize it as the ashy-ness of the incense.

 

Later on: Still smells like sweet incense and is very strong, even a few hours later.

 

Overall, if you love the smell of incense, this blend is for you. It’s sweet and smoky and alluring.

[Shollin]

First sniff: Syrupy sweetness, with a few flower petals, smothered in darkness.

 

Wearing: It’s very thick and very sweet and very dark. It’s hardly a “foody” scent, but it made my stomach growl from the incensey deliciousness.

[workedtodeath]

In bottle : sugar, incense, and a little soapy.

Wet : soap!

I give up.

I will try it again in about a week and hopefully it will smell different

[mspixieears]

It’s very bubblegummy like people say, with the addition of florals and the slightest herb-like scent. This is what it’s like while wet. I think this will warm up well on my skin and with my chemistry. About ten minutes later it becomes more floral and the initial sugary sweetness seems to have faded. I think this is a nice scent but not sure if I’ll use up the imp. The incense is okay but I find myself wishing this actually stayed sweeter. A few hours later it becomes really soapy. It’s fairly pleasant but not a keeper for me.

[CrazyPretzel]

In the decant: great big sweet flowers like night-blooming jasmine, and nag champa.

 

Wet on me: darn, the flowers go soapy. Hopefully this won't last.

 

After a few minutes: Still potent and bordering on soapy, but not too bad and fine if I don't huff my wrist too deeply. I can definitely smell mysterious, sugar-sweet incense.

 

Drydown: I am pleased to say that I get absolutely zero bubblegum from this. If anything it's a little bit more like cotton candy - a similar light, warm spun-sugar smell, but dark and sultry, not sticky and cloying like real cotton candy. Mainly it's champa-type incense. The soapiness from the flowers has chilled out and this may just be a winner.

[n3m3sis42]

In the bottle:

Sugared florals.

 

Wet:

It's reminding me of another Lab blend, but I can't figure out which one. The strongest note at the moment is honeysuckle or maybe jasmine. After a couple of minutes, an incensey smell comes out as well.

 

Dry:

This dries down very honeysuckle-y on me. It's not really what I expected, but it's pretty enough.

 

Edited to Add:

I spoke too soon. The incense came back out and it really adds a lot to this blend.

Edited September 21, 2007 by n3m3sis42