Voodoo

[allamanda]

A midnight scent, evoking images of flickering golden firelight reflecting off the sheen of glistening skin and the jerking shadows of bodies suffused with spiritual ecstasy. A deep, powerful, resonant blend of myrrh, patchouli, vetiver, lime, vanilla, pine, almond and clove.

Now I'm convinced my nose is weird. First thing I smelt was mint!! On concentrating it seems to be the combination of lime, vanilla and pine. Strong resinous smell whilst wet. As it dries I am smelling the patchouli. Now it is smelling sweeter and I can smell the almond and clove. Very nice, I like this. Beautifully blended smells. An hour or more on and I am totally hooked. This smells gorgeous.

[ipb]

i'm just loving on voodoo right now. patchouli and vanilla, and something murkier (the myrrh or vetier), with a hint of almond.. sex all the way, but totally different than, say, snake oil. snake oil's more of a slithery "come hither and let me seduce you" and voodoo's more of a "you come here and seduce me"

[catiebloo]

I love love love this one! When it's wet the pine and the almond really shine through so to speak...i can smell marzipan quite strongly. But when it's dry it's a very hot'n'spicy scent. The patchouli and clove are the most prominent oils in this one for me, backed up by the kick of lime You can almost imagine yourself joining in some wierd voodoo ritual while wearing this (or dancing on the beach in front of the fire with Johnny Depp in Pirates Of The Caribbean )

[Tesseljoan]

MMMmmmmm, very hectic and yet edible when wet. The vanilla and patchouli turn really wild because of the pine... when it quitens down it's a very deep, warm, almost incense type of smell. Very interesting, this one.

 

I have to edit, because after 2 years of BPAL, this first scent I tried is still one of my signature scents. If I had a shred of poetry in me, I would go on and on about it.. I won't. But it is this weird scents which blends so perfectly on my skin and always gets me compliments.

Edited May 12, 2006 by Tesseljoan

[shriekingviolet]

Initial Impression:

Sharp and complex. I can definitely smell the lime and the pine, with a bit of the myrrh as well.

 

After Wearing It:

Wow. This one is so complex, it's awfully hard to pull a description together. It's earthy and mysteriousy, smelling strongly of pine almond and patchouli when it firsts goes on, then after it dries, the scent's complexity really shows through. It's crisp and sharp, yet misty and sweet. Spicy, but almost clean smelling. It makes me think of chanting and ritual dancing, of raising energy just for the sake of doing so.

 

Final Thoughts:

I really like this one. It's such a paradox in itself, and wraps you in a cloak of mischief and mystery. I need to wear it a few more times to get to know it better.

[paperdoll]

Initial Sniff: This is going to sound horrible, but all I can think of when I smell this is a high-power deoderizer we use at work called Cherry Bomb. I must have a strange nose because that is really all I smell at first!

 

Wearing: We pass from the cherry bomb phase into the baby powder phase (double yurk!) into a final wearable scent which is complex, sweet, and spicy.

 

Final Impressions: Oh, I so wanted to like this one! The description sounds absolutely divine, but this just doesn't work with my body chemistry. Although the drydown is nice, it is definitely not worth the two hours of olfactory misery I went through to get there.

[quinkel]

wow, this is a very special blend. It changes all the time. Just when I think i know it, it morphs again.

It starts with a sweet almond-y mazipain smell, that disappears when applied. The first half hours it´s sharp, almost fresh. Cloves and pine. It morphs again into something very sweet and lingering, like a cloud of sweet smoke.

 

the final is soft powdery/incencestick like.

 

Voodoo, a complete ritual in a bottle!

 

Love it

[nenia]

smells like an amaretto sour, which is awesome for me being that it is one of my very favourite drinks...all it needs is a drop of cherry and it would be the perfect cocktail. mm now i am thirsty

 

this scent seems to change, it varies from the amaretto sour scent to a disinfectant/pine sol type smell...interesting, but doubt i would buy a larger bottle.

[RosieP]

This is absolutely gorgeous - thank you so much, Allamanda for sending me some to try.

 

Just looking at what was IN it convinced me I'd love it before I even opened the vial and it hasn't let me down!

 

I've been wearing it for about four hours now (still going strong with no need to re-apply yet!)

 

When wet I could strongly smell the pine, patchouli and almond with the lime floating in the background. The pine 'spike' reminds me of Golden Priapus (one of my favourites) so I was rather pleased that, while this toned down so it was not so 'in-yer-face' when it had dried, it was still there in the background.

 

It has softened now to something slightly smoky, incense-y and decidedly sexy - mmm, I can smell the clove and vanilla now.... this would go well with Skinny Dip, methinks

 

This one is definitely a 'me' scent and one I'll be ordering a big bottle of.

[bloodlotus]

I too am in love with this scent (I believe it made my top ten list posted elsewhere on this site.)

 

I smell the lime and clove and vanilla and vetiver (which I can't get enough of.)

 

I love the way the scent morphs as you wear it--while still keeping the integrity of the original blend intact.

 

It smells pleasantly androgynous and reminds me of Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans (purely subjective opinion here! )

 

It is delicious!

[_dark_cello_]

Everytime I put on Voodoo, I feel like I'm stepping into a voodoo shop in New Orleans. The combo of patchouli, vanilla, almond, and pine floods me with memories of the oils, incense and damp wood of those little shops in the Quarter.

It gets a little powdery after a few hours so I just reapply more.

I love this one...just fabulous!

[sirensongsouth]

Wet I was reminded of some european herbal flavored candy, can't think of what right now, but something I tried a while back. Dry, it was almondy before becoming a softly sweet-n-spicy kind of scent. Nice, and I am sure I will use up my imp, but I don't love it as much as some of the others.

[friendthegirl]

First whiff from vial: For some reason, I'm picking up an orangey smell and I can smell the patchouli also. I'm also getting some of those resinous smells people are talking about. Still smelling straight from vial, I'm kind of getting a scent of hardwood floors in an old store with incense. It reminds me of the Voodoo section in Schwab's on Beale Street, not quite New Orleans, but very close.

 

On the skin: This really really smells like hardwood floors to me so far. I can just imagine being in an ancient store. There's an old ancient smell that I'm picking up on. I'm not sure what it is.

Now that it's tried down a little, I can really smell the vanilla! I can't make any sweeping judgements yet, since this is only my first one.

Edited March 30, 2004 by friendthegirl

[Shollin]

First sniff: Voodoo is otherworldly and mysterious, flickering firelight and pulsing drums and dancing shadows. I can’t pick out any specific notes (except the sweet almond, after I’ve checked the list and know it’s there), but I like the feel of this.

 

Wearing: Definitely sweet almond. After a few minutes the aura turns into something very dry and enveloping – the lightest brush of a gossamer veil, a very familiar scent but one I can’t quite pin down – almost like honey, if it were dried to a powder and sprinkled in the flames. It reminds me of one of the phases Alice went through before she settled down. There’s a lot going on in this one – it will be very interesting to see how it develops. The wrist-scent goes smoky in a spicy way and then a bit sweetly pine-ish… it’s constantly changing. I think the scent it was most often was a blend of not-too-sharp pine and not-too-sweet almond.

[skg]

Okay day two of the amazing smell-o-thon...

 

First impression in the bottle, Cherry 7-Up/Shirley Temple.

It was that weird synthetic lemon soda smell with the cherry/maraschino syrupy sweetness.

 

*gah I am going to hate this*

 

Upon putting it on the almond and vanilla were the main notes being sugary and almost sickly sweet.

 

*damn i really hate this*

 

10 minutes later it's mellowed nicely with the sweetness being replaced by the myrhh/patchouli meshing nicely with the amber/vanilla and the lime/vertivert as part of the finish.

 

*Oh, hold on a second there...*

 

A coupla hours later the amber/myrhh waft around me every time i move but upon smelling my wrist the lime and vetivert are more present.

 

*Yeah, this is more like it*

 

End of the day left me with a warm honeyed amber with a touch of almond and only the faintest hint of lime.

 

*Wow, what a difference a day makes...*

 

 

**Edited to add**

I tried this again today and now i smell like red licorice...

 

I HATE red licorice!

 

Well I guess this one is going into the swap pile too dammit!

Edited May 12, 2004 by skg

[nevermore]

When I first put this on, it smelled really lemon-y (despite the fact that there isn’t any lemon in the description). As it dried, Voodoo calmed down to myrrh, vanilla, lime and a touch of pine. As time went on, it changed continually – sometimes it really surprised me when I caught a whiff of it. After a few hours (3 or 4) it calmed down into vanilla/myrrh with a bit of almond and something that might be the vetiver. All in all, it’s gorgeous and I shall be purchasing a bigger bottle of this soon!

[jj_j]

Smelled soooo sweet out of the bottle, I almost passed on this one. Good thing I'm sticking to my rule about trying them all, no matter what - because Voodoo turned into something really good for a while.

 

Lime, vanilla, and myrrh start this out, and that's a fantastic combination. The pine eventually peeks through, and the crisp, needly green is a nice addition. The almond wasn't a factor after this touched my skin.

 

Unfortunately for me, the clove becomes more and more obvious, and within five minutes I knew this would have to go - cloves give me instant headache. It's a shame, though, because the rest of this scent was a gem.

[Thanatopsis Azraelis]

This is one of my very favorite BPAL scents. It smells a lot like Black Phoenix, except instead of going ultra-feminine on me like Black Phoenix did, it just whirls around in a heady blend of spices. Yum.

 

Spicy. Very spicy. And while it doesn't evoke images of voodoo in particular, I do get very pleasant thoughts of dancing around campfires in Dionysian ecstacy.

[hypothermya]

I have to say that I really didn't understand how anyone could be careless enough to let the sinew on the imp ears suck up the oil from the vial until I got this imp in the mail. It's almost as if the sinew itself is mimicking the personality of the scent, being wild and tangled up; hard to unravel. Or maybe I'm just carrying this metaphor too far. In anycase, I got this because I love anything with lime in it, and I've had a love affair with voodoo for quite a while now. It seemed like the perfect scent to get, although I had no clue what I'd be in for.

 

In the Bottle

 

This has a spicey scent to it, as if the clove, vanilla and almond all came lunging out for my nose. But there's something a bit darker to it (must be the vetiver), and earthy. And there -- there's the lime, just a splash of it. But it's funny...no matter how long I sniff at this imp ear, it refuses to let one part of it be more dominant than the other parts. This miasma of smell that keeps shifting. I like it though. Can't wait to put some on.

 

Wearing It

 

That earthy scent picks up right away. Like fresh churned soil with a bit of medicinal herbs mixed in. Must be the myrhh and patchouli. And there's a bit of bitter stickyness - Ah..the pine, okay... I'm slowly beginning to be able to pick out individual elements in this. It's getting a bit more leathery now, except -- no, back to the medicinal earth scent...

 

As it's drying it's becoming even more difficult to pin this one down! This is fun, like chasing someone through a hedge maze! Just wearing this feels like a dark, challenging game. But even so, it smells wonderfully thick and complex. I feel a bit dissapointed that the almond/vanilla scent got drowned out so quickly -- I rather liked the way it was mixing with those two in the bottle.... But the clove and the lime are still there. Every now and then I get a spike of those two, mixed in with the leathery scent. This is yummy. (okay, while I was typing, those two scents made themselves more apparent. it seems that this is one of Beth's morphing mystery creations, the type which change all the while you wear them.)

 

As difficult as it is to describe, I really think I like this one. It's heady and full and not at all standard. I enjoy the way the scents change around just as you think you've got it figured out. I really like how when I'm wearing this I find myself thinking of a bunch of different chapters from Dundies' Mother Wit From the Laughing Barrell (a collection of folklore from the Southern States which focuses heavily on Voodoo lore). God I hope I don't end up being allergic to this one -- I think I might cry at the thought of not being able to wear this again.

 

This is definitely going onto my favorites list, and I'm definitely going to have to get a bigger bottle of this.

 

edited to say: sadly, the second time I wore this, it turned to a mostly baby powder scent in about a half an hour (although the first half hour was delicious smelling!). The only remaining strong scents were the pine, clove, and leather. Which would have been fine without the baby powder. I don't know what I did to my skin chemistry to deserve this, but I feel like screaming at it for ruining yet another good smelling oil!

Edited June 1, 2004 by hypothermya

[Koumori]

I had to wear this one for a couple of days before I could even begin to figure out what I think of it. Wet, on me the smell of this is reminiscent of nothing so much as cream soda or Dr. Pepper. As the day goes on, it mellows and the scents blend into each other so that it's hard for me to distinguish individual notes. I definitely get a strong base of vanilla and patchouli, with just a tiny bit of the lime pulling everything together and preventing me from smelling like a hippie. (Nothing against hippies - I'm just not one! ) The cloves don't bother me as they often do in spice-heavy scents. Clove and pine peek out every now and then. As others have said, this is a very tough scent to pin down! While it's not on my top-ten list, it's certainly lovely and works well on me. Most of the scents I've requested samples of lately have faded on me pretty quickly, but this one has good staying power. Every so often that crazy blend does still give me a whiff of Dr. Pepper! Luckily, I love Dr. Pepper.

[Ina Garten Davita]

First Impression: MMMMM, sweet and insencey, all golden and red.

 

Second Impression: The cloves are the most prominent but the blend is so well done, it's very harmonious.

 

Final Analysis: This is dark and mysterious, sweet and alluring. Another keeper.

The lime really shows itself the longer it dries and it becomes even sweeter.

Edited May 30, 2004 by andrabell

[Lady_Ell]

This immediately went all Cherry Coke on me. After 1/2 an hour it calmed down into what Mr. L. described as "malasadas with baby powder instead of powdered sugar" - for anyone who doesn't know, malasadas are Portuguese doughnut-like pastries. Kinda like Krispy Kreme but less sweet.

 

I was really looking forward to this, because it had such an interesting mix of ingredients. But it really just smelled so much like Cherry Coke that I felt like a 12 year old playing dress-up.

[malanna]

In the bottle and after initial application: Smells like Mr. Pibb, yum!

 

After a while, it loses that carbonated feel and settles down with the patchouli (judging from the other reviews, I guess that's what it's supposed to be). Makes me think of tribal people wearing masks and dancing around a fire. Several hours later, I can smell the lime, which is pleasant. However, even then, the oil gets a powdery feel, which I don't like.

[Becky]

I think this is a fabulous scent! in the bottle it smelled like lime Jello or kool-aid to me. when on the myrrh comes out immediatly but then blends in with the lime and vanilla, the patchouli only peaks out, which is good because usually patchouli takes over on me. it makes me think of sitting deep in the woods, burning incense, and drinking (possibly spiked) kool-aid. its absolutly wonderful. and its been on me for about 5 hours and still going strong.

 

my sister said I smelled like gingerbread cookies. must be the clove.

woodsy lime or gingerbread, I think its fantastic!

 

[Ishtar]

Ooh, this is a complex, changeable, cheeky blend that just defies description.

Anyway, it smells good.

 

 

Oh, but you wanted a review?

OK, I'll try...

 

In the vial, Voodoo smells unusual yet promising. You know, the kind of oil that makes you think "I sure hope this will smell different once applied, but I bet it could be divine on my skin"

 

At first, the lime, vanilla and pine are the strongest notes on me, with an undertone of "something else" (hey, I warned you it was difficult to describe! ). Pleasant, but rather busy at this stage. There are lots going on at the same time in this blend. I can't wait for it to settle down as I have a feeling it will turn out great.

 

After wearing it and actually forgetting about it for several hours while working, I suddenly caught a whiff of something wonderfully spicy and woody. Mmm!

Oh, wait. Now the patchouli is coming through. And that must be the cloves... oh, the lime is back again... very changeable but quite harmonious.

 

I agree with Thanatopsis Azraelis, this is like the masculine version of Black Phoenix. The spiciness and woodiness also remind me of Yves Saint Laurent Pour Homme that I used to wear years ago. Yet, I would call Voodoo a unisex scent rather than a masculine one; it can definitely be worn beautifully by a women.