Ouija

[JazzieCazzie]

... this is the essence of Victorian-era spiritualism: rosewood, oak and teak notes with wispy blue lilac, tea rose, dried white rose and ethereal osmanthus.

 

Received as frimp in an order from the Lab.

IN THE BOTTLE: Pleasantly medicinal and evocative of childhood (must be the lilac).

Dabbed lightly on wrist and in crook of arm.

WET: Surprisingly, I'm getting "bandaids" when wet, though none of the notes are ones I associate with the "BPAL bandaids" scent (which, by the way, is a scent I love). Definitely something medicinal and, again, looking at the list of notes I am not making the connection (I wrote down my observations before looking at the notes). Bandaids and a little bit of dark fruitiness. Not fruit, but fruitiness. For me there is a slight difference, a richness. I might have guessed fig. On my wrist, it's pure bandaids and dark fruit, while in the crook of my arm I get more spice and mercurochrome. It's spooky and sweetly good.

DRYDOWN: This turns into something completely unlike the wet scent for me, though, again, I am still not recognizing any of the listed notes. I read this as an ozone scent on me when it dried. Clean, floral, but definitely not "me." And it loses all of the medicinal qualities that I liked when wet.

OVERALL: This is one of those scents (Envy comes to mind, but there are others) where, if I could just capture the wet scent and keep it there, it would be a keeper for me. Not a big bottle purchase but a keeper. But instead the drydown which is, of course, the majority of the time it spends wafting up to my nose is NOT a good one. Not a washoff, but definitely scuttled off to the swap box.

On a scale of 1-5, I give it a 4 wet and a 2 dry and, scaling down for the time differential, I give this a 2.5

[BoneBone24]

Wet: Sweet, sharp, and woody. There’s an almost spicy or medicinal component, like sarsaparilla.

 

Drydown: I’m getting a whiff of something almost-but-not-quite minty. Is that the teak or white rose maybe?? Sort of...chalky too. But, in a good way! Whoever said Necco wafers had the right idea. The word elusive comes to mind. I’m getting parts of notes, but none are fully whole. There’s an aspect of lilac, but it’s not all there. And the sweetness and freshness of rose, without the ROSE-ness of rose. Curiously, the rosewood smells stunning, which is not at all how it usually smells on me! (usually it’s sharp/acrid & cologne-y) And the oak and osmanthus lend a smooth and exotic glow to the blend that begins to shape its eventual direction. It’s very pretty and unlike anything I’ve ever smelled before.

 

Dry: Still beautiful and still difficult to describe, but I can discern that it is more floral-centric and dewey now. The osmanthus is the stand-out, followed by white rose, and both are gorgeous together. It’s a quiet blend, not much amping, and I almost want to describe it as bashful. The oak and rosewood give just the right touch of grounding to otherwise floaty and hard to pin down pale florals. This one is really one-of-a-kind and I’m surprised by how much I like it.

 

 

 

 

8 out of 10 bones

[theredkilt]

My skin amps the rose and all i get is smoky red rose. Bummer.

[maija]

Ouija is truly evocative scent. First it's all polished woods for the first 30-40 minutes. It actually smells like some heavy wooden antique furniture. Or perhaps the actual ouija board. There's also something cool, almost minty about this stage.

 

About half an hour after applying it changes completely, woods fade away and faint, ghostly flowers emerge. I don't really smell roses, I keep thinking violets but they are not mentioned in the description. I get color association of almost translucent blue and violet.This stage is beautiful but fades away really quick. Sadly this perfume doesn't last more than hour on my skin. I'm curious how this would work as a room scent. It fades away so quickly that this won't be a bottle purchase for me. But it's perfect for its name and description.

[lucycat]

This was a frimp from the Lab.

 

In the imp: Wow. On first sniff this is just what the description suggests: a Victorian parlor. I love historic houses; I volunteer as a tour guide in one in my town, and I visit others whenever I can. The combination of woods, as of carved furniture and paneling, flowers and dried flowers is perfectly evocative of the parlor of a 19^th-century house.

 

On second sniff, I get an almost camphor-like note.

 

Wet: Wintergreen? I can’t explain it, but that’s what I smell.

 

Dry: As this dries, I can separate out the flowers. I primarily smell the roses, and then the lilacs, which float above the various woods in the base.

Ouija fades away in just a few hours.

 

I would never have picked Ouija on my own, but the flowers are soft and unobtrusive and tempered by the wood notes. I don’t know that I’ll wear it very often, but this one is worth keeping just to sniff from time to time. Thank you, Lab!

[DiesMali]

In the imp: I was expecting something incensey and heady, but this is surprisingly floral.

 

Wet on my skin: Beautiful blend of rose and lilac, threatening to become a little old-ladyish.

 

Dry: This is a gorgeous perfume on me, thanks to the lilac, which almost always works well with my skin. It's a dark, dusty floral with hints of antique wood and maybe a little bit of incense somewhere in the mix. It smells exactly how I would imagine a darkened Victorian sitting room as the occupants perform a forbidden seance. It has a very antique feel to it, and maybe a hint of sadness in it as well. Perhaps the occupants of the room were trying to speak to a recently and tragically deceased loved one. This is so very pretty, and makes up for the earlier disappointment with the Lilac Wood.

[flaer]

I really wanted to love this blend, and it smelt promising in the imp.

 

But, I do get the ghostly references that others had referred to. The scent is a well-blended soft floral, and there is no sharpness at all even when wet. I'm highly impressed since some floral notes do go on quite sharply on me (and I tend to amp roses too).

 

However, the scent reminded me of a deodorant that I once had

While it's a gorgeous and clean floral, I don't see myself reaching for it when I have The Ghost Children that evokes the same feels.

[Veronica]

This is light, fresh wet florals--a beautiful blend, with the tea rose taking center stage--but the teak poking out from beneath is just off on me.

[paperdollsandbpal]

I got this in imp form and didn't really know what to expect as I've never worn/owned anything that had such woody notes.

 

At first sniff I was reminded of my childhood church with wooden floors and dusty pianos. And when I really think about it I can totally picture that this is how an old ouija board would actually smell.

 

After it dries I'm left with slight yummy florals. I REALLY like this

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: Woody, sour, soapy. Not a great start. Really astringent. Herbal. Not pleasant on me so far.

 

Dry: Remains quite sour, not nice with my skin chemistry. I'm not at all sure which note has gone badly - based on history though I think it has to be the oak (maybe the osmanthus). Just before it fades away completely it turns to a nice soft floral of lilac and rose, but it's so faint, and so unpleasant before that that this won't be one I can wear. Too bad, lilacs and roses are two of my favourite florals.

[freyasfae]

Right off, this is licorice/anise on me, which is very tempting to wash off...but if I wait it out it gets woodsier and prettier, but I hate licorice.

 

I read some of the other views and one other person got the licorice at first, so maybe I found my skin chemistry twin.

[PrinceofcatS]

This literally smells like toothpaste in the imp. It smells that way when it goes on wet, too, and though the toothpaste impression fades, the mint doesn't. It's crazy! I expected smoke because everyone else said that but I get this bold crips wafting mint and a quickly developing blue lilac.

 

After it dries down I still get some chill from the mint but the lilac dominates and the roses and osmanthus float beneath it. If there's wood in this scent, it's very distant and just adds a nice complexity to the base of it. I think the aquatic note i always get from tea rose bolsters the lushness of the blue lilac and then the white rose is also there. Osmanthus is hard to explain to someone who's never smelled it before. It's like an apricot-honey smell but it's a flower and it smells like a flower. If you don't like fruit scents it can really throw off a floral! I used to really hate it but it grew on me really quickly.

 

Osmanthus and white rose come out more later in the drydown and it starts to get a scent that reminds me of what Mata Hari used to smell like on me - I think it's the interaction of the wood notes finally coming into play and rose. I honestly thought I amped wood notes. Apparently not even close. In this past order I also got some forest scents and the forest parts of them all utterly vanish on my skin. By the end this is some kind of wood base, bit of rose and osmanthus. Osmanthus seems to be used a lot to evoke otherworldly atmospheres? I think it works really well for that purpose and it's so pretty here.

 

I think tea rose and white rose are some of my favorite rose notes from BPAL, I adore lilac and really wanted a lilac scent, and I am coming to adore osmanthus, so for these flowers to dominate this scent is a plus. That toothpaste smell at first is REALLY offputting for me though, and I wish it were mostly lilac for longer (but I didn't expect to be able to smell any lilac at all in this blend, so that I did is a point in its favor). I like the woody flowery scent it's drying into, but the period when it was lilac and rose was the best one. (...I should look into Les Fleurs du Mal, huh.) This one has been complex and develops a lot and is a very unusual group of flowers. I also feel like the lilac evoked memories from being at my omi's house over the summer when I was a child, and that, overall, this really does have a haunting Victorian feel. But it's really weird to me that everyone else seems to get "WOOD!!!! and then it is some flowers later" which was the opposite of my experience. Still, Victorian parlor with rich polished wood and velvet seat cushions, flowers everywhere, and a faint, mysterious chill - is it from the flowers? Or is it Something More... That's this scent for me and I really love it. It's easily one of the most successful imps I've tried recently.

Edited March 29, 2016 by PrinceofcatS

[Agatha B. Android]

This scent has a medicinal, mint toothpaste kick that immediately shocked me and transported me to a dilapidated, ghost-ridden dental office. This minty, icy-hot toothpaste quality never relented, even after hours of wear. Creeping through the wreckage of dental procedures gone wrong and seedy toothpaste overdoses was dust, distant dried lilacs, a trace of wood paneling...and more toothpaste...the echoes of fresh toothpaste intermingled with the desiccated reality of toothpaste past its prime and left to rot in the old, abandoned dental office.

[Mermaid-on-Land]

I'm really liking this so far! It smells dusty and velvety early on, I'm getting more of the wood than flowers but what florals I do smell are mostly rose. A coworker loved my perfume today, she even commented that the throw is very different from how it smells close to the wrist. It's more of the wood notes close to the wrist, of which I think rosewood is most dominant, and flowers far away. It has a haunting quality to it that I really enjoy, I think it might be the dusty rosewood? The flowers seem dried rather than really fresh. I mostly get the rose and lilac, I'm not sure what osmanthus smells like so I'm not noticing that. The rose here reminded me of the attar of rose note from Obsidian Widow actually. The throw is fantastic, and this seems to last pretty well, about 7 hours. The color association for me is very desaturated light lilac blues and purples. In someone's review they said it reminded them of standing in the secret garden. I actually think it reminds me more of investigating old rooms in Misselthwaite Manor. It somehow does have a definite Victorian vibe. The spirits have spoken, Ouija is a yes

Edited August 29, 2016 by Mermaid-on-Land

[Coldfire]

Imp: light dusty musty floral like you would find at your Great Auntie's armoire
Wet on Me: still a dusty musty floral
Drying Down: okey dokey now. air freshener rose, lilac and bandaids.
Dry: yeah. Rose and Lilac teamed up to become bullies on my skin.

[Mokiefraggle]

This one actually kinda scared me in the imp. It was ferociously woodsy, like the smell of wet wood rather than a warm, polished wood scent I was hoping for when I read the notes. I had no idea what could've been the source, since I'm pretty sure I've had a BPAL or two with rosewood or teak, and I don't recall oak being that sharp...this was so strong and so harsh at first that I actively jerked back from the imp on first sniff, but I'm used to putting trust in the Lab and their work, so I finally went for it. It was all worth it.

 

Once it was on my skin and had a chance to settle, the aggressive woods settled down into something much more mild and warm, and the flowers started to come out. I ended up with something very nice and balanced, and I'm realizing I don't actually amp rose like I thought I might, since it stayed surprisingly calm and blended with the other scents. Good stuff!

[Casablanca]

On the wand, primarily woody, and a little musty, camphorous, and vanillic.

 

On my skin, a woody and creamy root beer? Whuh?

 

In drydown, the root beer starts to separate into a curious anise-lilac-wood mix, and then a little white rose peeps open. Once dried, the whole thing goes more floral, but also scarcely detectable on me.

[lwhitesel]

Right away, it smelled like dry wood. Kind of like being in a wood-paneled room with lots of wooden things, but it is not an intriguing room. Just a lot of wood.

 

Then, 100% rose all the time. I guess I really amp rose? No thanks.

 

It smelled much more complex in the bottle.

[Cali]

From the imp and in it's wet stages it's just all medicinal. Woodsy, wet, slightly herbal but also artificial.

Honestly I just get root beer on drydown, it's odd. In the end there's that medicinal ...thing is still there, vaguely in the background, and a touch of lavender (or rather something resembling that). Barely any rose... too bad, I love rose. :c

[mishi-bear]

My imp of Ouija is about a decade old, so that might change how it smells versus a new batch.

 

That said, the first time I tried Ouija, I remember being kind of 'meh' on it. It was just a floral. Not much to say. I put it in my imp box and forgot about it.

 

I recently got around to trying it again, and I think I gave it too little credit the first go around. I can't imagine it has changed much since it was already old the first time I tried it. Maybe my tastes have just changed, or my sense of smell and perception of other notes has gotten better.

 

Ouija is a very dry scent to me. The strongest note in this is the lilac, followed by the slight sour-sweetness of rose. The woods are barely there, but they have an impact, and really dry this scent out. The osmanthus also makes this almost fruity, just barely, in the background.

 

I'd definitely be interested in trying a newer imp of this one day, and then maybe go for a big bottle from there.

[Lucchesa]

I find dried rose petals one of the lab's most evocative scents. In Zombi they were too melancholy for me, but here the combination of fresh and dried flowers and the dusty woods is really lovely. I don't get the camphor or toothpaste scent some reviewers have complained of, but I wonder if that's what reads as dusty to me. (The faintest whiff of mothballs in my grandmother's closet?) This didn't morph a lot on me; the woods and florals settled into gentle balance and stayed there. A dry, haunting scent.

[dementia_divine]

In the imp: Dusty woods, lilac, and dried rose petals.

 

Wet: The wood notes dominate, at least one of which still has a dusty quality to me, with the blue lilac permeating the room.

 

But then, lo! I get... sarsaparilla!!?!?!?! Well, that was certainly unexpected. At first, I experienced this coolness, and I thought it was some kind of mint representing the ectoplasm, but then it took on a distinct root beer quality. It smells like someone spilled some sarsaparilla in this Victorian parlor in which a séance is about to take place.

 

Dry: Okay, the curious root beer phase was short-lived. I am now getting a burst of something cool (must be the ectoplasm) in a smoke-filled room with wooden tables, with wisps of lilac and dried roses. The place on my arm where I applied the scent has a very cool feel to it. The wood notes are not nearly as prominent as they were during the wet phase of the scent. Then, the tea rose emerges, so that I mainly get tea rose, ectoplasm, lilac, and woods. When the ectoplasm note dissipates, I'm mainly left with the tea rose, wood notes, and dried rose.

 

Verdict: This one morphed a lot on me. I have no idea where the random root beer phase came from, but the dry down of this scent really fits its description! I'm glad that the dusty woods ended up calming down, because I'm not a fan of wood-dominant scents, and I didn't really want to smell dusty. I don't need a bottle of this, but I think I may hang onto my imp just because it's such a curious scent experience.

[sarandipitee]

Weird, this is basically a floral Stimulating Sassafras Strengthener when wet. All winter green lifesavers minus the vanilla sweetness.

 

As it dries it becomes more musty- but I can’t pinpoint individual notes for the Rose or lilac.

 

It’s a very creepy scent and I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s a little high pitched the longer I wear it and I can see it inducing a headache eventually.