Different smells/colors, same perfume

[cfrancesca]

I just received my back-up Womb Furie bottle from the lab, and decided to sniff it before putting it away, to my surprise it's whoa on the O! I took out the other bottle to compare (which I ordered from when it was released) and it's definitely more Snake Oil in that one. I'm not complaining at all because I LOVE O and Snake Oil, I'm just happily surprised with this batch variation.

[ljaylh]

I just received my back-up Womb Furie bottle from the lab, and decided to sniff it before putting it away, to my surprise it's whoa on the O! I took out the other bottle to compare (which I ordered from when it was released) and it's definitely more Snake Oil in that one. I'm not complaining at all because I LOVE O and Snake Oil, I'm just happily surprised with this batch variation.

 

Hmm.. that's very interesting, because my WF bottle was about 99.9999% O-like honey with the Snake Oil cowering sadly miles away in the background, and sadly it just wasn't what I was hoping for. My bottle was ordered soon after its release too.. hmm..

 

[cfrancesca]

I get a lot of O from my first bottle too, but this one has even more of it, and actually smells like aged O to me, it's more rich, whereas my first bottle smells more of fresh O.

[loladae]

I'm wondering if this is a question concerning age or batch difference. I was frimped an imp of Inez of uncertain age, and it smelled divine. Kind of like cookies and that beautifl golden amber. So, I bought a bottle of it from a forumitie after a while and it smelled like myrhh. On my skin it was practically single note myrhh and it was terrible. Anyone have this same reaction?

 

Thanks!

[bluerose]

I'm wondering if this is a question concerning age or batch difference. I was frimped an imp of Inez of uncertain age, and it smelled divine. Kind of like cookies and that beautifl golden amber. So, I bought a bottle of it from a forumitie after a while and it smelled like myrhh. On my skin it was practically single note myrhh and it was terrible. Anyone have this same reaction?

 

Thanks!

 

I think it's a batch difference. It has happened in other blends too. In this case, I guess the myrrh in this batch is super strong.

 

I ordered a bottle of Inez late last year and got the same "Whoa. Myrrh!". Based on reviews, especially the earlier ones where there's no mistake of what it's suppose to smell like fresh, I don't think Inez is usually that myrrh heavy.

 

I've been aging mine and the myrrh is no longer as prominent, but still one of the dominant notes. Hopefully a little bit longer the myrrh note will get even less pronounced.

[loladae]

I think it's a batch difference. It has happened in other blends too. In this case, I guess the myrrh in this batch is super strong.

 

I ordered a bottle of Inez late last year and got the same "Whoa. Myrrh!". Based on reviews, especially the earlier ones where there's no mistake of what it's suppose to smell like fresh, I don't think Inez is usually that myrrh heavy.

 

I've been aging mine and the myrrh is no longer as prominent, but still one of the dominant notes. Hopefully a little bit longer the myrrh note will get even less pronounced.

 

Thanks so much! I'll try to get an older bottle then...

 

[glitterlips]

I had this happen with Obatala! I was frimped an Obatala with my first forum purchase and it was instant LURVE!!! It smelled exactly like fresh coconut meat and it is divine. I immediately ordered a 5ml of this heavenly scent.

 

When it arrived, I was overjoyed and took a sniff - WHOA on the Coppertone suntan lotion!! I was so disappointed that it didn't smell like my imp at all!! I figured that maybe it needed to age a bit and I became really stingy with using my imp while the other "cooks".

 

I recently purchased an aged Obatala on eBay and I am really happy to say that it is the smell I fell for! So I'll let my suntan lotion Obatala sit for a while and I'll use my new "aged" version.

 

I haven't smelled regular Snake Oil yet, but I purchased a partial Womb Furie on the forum and it smells mostly of honey (or maybe a honey/baby powder blend?) to me. I think that might need to age as well, haven't decided if I like it or not yet.

 

 

Melanie

[wvgemini]

I will try to get a pic of this one later but I figured I'd share my latest batch variation. I got a couple of imps of Czernobog with my last order. One was purchased, one frimp. One is SUPER dark and VERY generic cologne smell. So much so my guy had to wash it off. I haven't tried the other one but I wondered if anyone else had seen this with Czernobog. I'm guessing the darker one is older? But woah on the overpowering cologne ...

[Wwindy]

I bought a bottle of Hermia unsniffed when that scent when live, I thought it sounded so good And I think the description of your bright-orange imp sounds much more like my bottle. There's a lot of pink pepper in it, which is spicy and sweet - I can't say that it actually goes so far as to smell like cake to me, but still, much closer to that description than to the way you describe the second imp. I think it is fairly rare that something actually gets mislabeled at the lab, but between the naturally sourced ingredients and the way aging affects the perfumes (especially bottles vs. imps) the batch variations can seem really drastic sometimes.

 

Oh my!! If this is true then I NEED to add a bottle to my next order. Mmmm! So good!

 

I guess it probably was a batch variation. Here's hoping that I get the bright orange batch.... *crosses fingers*

 

I've been wearing Hermia a lot lately in both (new) bottle and (old) imp form, so I have some thoughts on this front!

 

I ordered my imp in February '08 and noted when it arrived that the honeysuckle and passionflower were REALLY STRONG -- much too strong for my taste, especially that fruity-citrusy-floral thing passionflower does. I pulled the imp back out again a few months ago and found that the flowery bubble-gum notes had died back a lot, and there was (you guessed it!) a vaguely baked-goods sort of overtone. I think the pepper mellowed out and blended with the amber, with an added touch of honey sweetness coming from the honeysuckle.

 

My bottle arrived last week straight from the Lab. It's very nearly a match to my aged imp -- the passionflower is hardly anywhere to be found, IMO.

 

Now, the weird thing is that I don't think either my imp *or* my 5ml are bright orange... I'll have to go home and check!

Edited April 13, 2010 by Wwindy

[hkhm]

wow. i just tried on a dab of the dodo that came to me as a recent frimp from the lab... and...

 

in the past, all my imps (and my current bottle) have had a pleasant dose of cassia but nothing overpowering.

 

this one, however, started out as an agony of overwhelming cassia. i'm got pink welts to show for it. now i can smell the rest of the scent but wow. cassia overload.

[krazyanjel]

*found the answer myself*

Sorry...nothing to see here. Continue with your regular programming.

Edited April 18, 2010 by krazyanjel

[ami226]

Hey, Wwindy! Here are pictures of the different oil colors of the imps I described. Haven't changed at all since I posted...

 

 

-ETA- Forgot to mention that both are imps of Hermia...

Edited April 25, 2010 by Catseyes

[HKB]

Argh. I recently ordered The Phantom Wooer from the lab and it smells very different from the imp I had. The imp had a sweet lemony-floral that I loved, and this one smells mostly of lilies. It's nice but it's not what I became attached to! I don't think I should just order it again, because maybe it's a recent batch thing. Poop. Anyone else experience variations on this blend?

 

[Klepz]

GAHH Apparently the Black Lace I have come to love and adore is the one everyone seems to think is the "apple-y" version. I always thought it smelled like Super-Linen, but both my man and my mother think it smells like apple.

 

So I open my two backups and they smell nothing like it. Sure some linen and vanilla but other than that they are unrecognizable. Much more perfumey, and they actually remind me of Lilith Victoria.

 

Any hope that DD is still selling this apple-y version? I'm scrambling for more!

[KesHiro]

I got my backup bottle of Okayaki and it is a bit different from the one I bought in March. I'm now extremely happy that I was being stingy with that first bottle!

 

The first one is a cool vanilla musk with touches of bergamot and cardamom -- very soothing, calming, spa-like, and refreshing. This second bottle, on the other hand, is orange vanilla sweetener with something bitter in the background. It reminds me of Villainess' Just Desserts.

 

I thought I was having weird skin chemistry issues today, but I did a side by side test and while similar, the oils are different. Even my mom and bf noticed, and they usually don't "get" my scent obsessions.

 

It's not unpleasant, and I do like this variation of the fragrance, but this isn't the scent I fell in love with. I'm hoping some aging will bring it closer to the original. Any other Okayaki hoarders experience the same thing? Or did I get a fluke bottle? Or maybe this is the norm and that first one was a fluke?

 

 

[midnight_aeval]

GAHH Apparently the Black Lace I have come to love and adore is the one everyone seems to think is the "apple-y" version. I always thought it smelled like Super-Linen, but both my man and my mother think it smells like apple.

 

So I open my two backups and they smell nothing like it. Sure some linen and vanilla but other than that they are unrecognizable. Much more perfumey, and they actually remind me of Lilith Victoria.

 

Any hope that DD is still selling this apple-y version? I'm scrambling for more!

 

I'm sure you won't have a problem trying to find a swap for the "apple-y" version; there are a lot of people looking for the one that smells like the original, sans apple!

[krazyanjel]

LOL, ain't that the truth? How recently did you buy your backups of BL that didn't have the apples? My question above that'd found the answer to was actually inquiring on if DD was still selling the apple version, because I want one without the apple...I looked in the BL reviews, and a most recent post of about a week ago mentioned apples again...so Im thinking the apple version is the one they still have. (Dangitt.) Good for you, bad for me! Ha!

 

BTW: to people who DID get the apples version...pull it out and give it another test drive, if it's hiding in an aging box. The apple seems to be mellowing! Im holding on to mine, just to see what happens down the road, like a science experiment. The vanilla is starting to peek out from the over powering uber apple, becoming more of what I was hoping it might be. Just FYI.

[Klepz]

Hmm, upon yet another sniff, I noticed that the two "sans-apple" bottles are actually different from each other as well. Very slightly, but one had absolutely no apple note, and the other had a barest hint of it. My in-use bottle screams of it. I wonder if it's not a component that was just much, much stronger in that batch (much like a bottle of Shub that I have which is all cinnamon and can't touch my skin).

 

My apple-free bottles are from very early January, I believe. The apple bottle is from early February, so it was a while ago.

 

..all this makes me wish I could have sniffed the original

[Wwindy]

I got my backup bottle of Okayaki and it is a bit different from the one I bought in March. I'm now extremely happy that I was being stingy with that first bottle!

 

The first one is a cool vanilla musk with touches of bergamot and cardamom -- very soothing, calming, spa-like, and refreshing. This second bottle, on the other hand, is orange vanilla sweetener with something bitter in the background. It reminds me of Villainess' Just Desserts.

 

I thought I was having weird skin chemistry issues today, but I did a side by side test and while similar, the oils are different. Even my mom and bf noticed, and they usually don't "get" my scent obsessions.

 

It's not unpleasant, and I do like this variation of the fragrance, but this isn't the scent I fell in love with. I'm hoping some aging will bring it closer to the original. Any other Okayaki hoarders experience the same thing? Or did I get a fluke bottle? Or maybe this is the norm and that first one was a fluke?

 

I don't have anything useful to say... but now I'm really, really hoping the bottle I ordered matches my decant, which is most definitely not orange vanilla sweetener.

[KesHiro]

I got my backup bottle of Okayaki and it is a bit different from the one I bought in March. I'm now extremely happy that I was being stingy with that first bottle!

 

The first one is a cool vanilla musk with touches of bergamot and cardamom -- very soothing, calming, spa-like, and refreshing. This second bottle, on the other hand, is orange vanilla sweetener with something bitter in the background. It reminds me of Villainess' Just Desserts.

 

(edit for length/Kejiaron

 

I don't have anything useful to say... but now I'm really, really hoping the bottle I ordered matches my decant, which is most definitely not orange vanilla sweetener.

 

Well, here's some good news! Maybe? I started to wonder if this was an aging issue and left the bottle uncapped in the hopes of speeding up the process. While not quite the same as my beloved first bottle, it's much less of the orange vanilla sweetener variety and getting closer to the cool, refreshing spa vibe. The citrus note isn't as sharp, weird, and orangey and the olive blossom (or whatever creates that creamy note) has taken on some depth. The snow note seems to be gaining some strength, too, as the scent is a lot cooler. It's nowhere near the perfection of my first bottle but it's closer and that gives me a lot of hope.

 

I think another week or two of being uncapped might help. I've been doing the sniff test every few hours (can you tell I want this to quickly improve? ). I hope that your bottle is the same as your decant.

 

Edit: some additional info

Edited May 6, 2010 by Kejiaron

[Klepz]

Hm.. I started wondering about my very cinnamony bottle of Shub, which was very unlike a decant of it I had tried a while back. I chalked it up to aging, but then I started wondering..

 

Looking through the reviews of Shub, it feels like there are a lot more "OMG Cinnamon!" reviews starting in 2008 (the kind where all people smell is cinnamon, or the perfume burns and they wash it off). Before 2008, I didn't notice any wash-offs.

 

So, anyone with a bottle of Shub care to comment? Has the blend become more cinnamon-y over time?

[hkhm]

So, anyone with a bottle of Shub care to comment? Has the blend become more cinnamon-y over time?

 

well, my current in-use bottle is from august of 2008 and it's incredibly gingery/spicy on me. cinnamon burns me horribly so i would definitely notice if it was strengthening. my blend has become stronger (i have a much younger bottle that i just gave a quick sniff to) but not cinnamon-stronger.

[Klepz]

Thanks so much hkhm! Perhaps just a batch difference then. I tend to amp cinnamon as well, and my decant never smelled much of it while my bottle nearly gave me welts.

I've seen someone say in the aging thread that Chimera's WHOA-cinnamon tones down into just "spice" with age (which is what I smelled), so maybe it could (eventually!) age out.

 

..good thing I ordered another bottle to compare Why must this be difficult

[sunlitgarden]

My Okayaki bottle that arrived yesterday does smell different than the decant I have (which I'm guessing is a month or two old by now). The decant version does feel "cooler" and more refreshing. The new one is sweeter and more floral. I too am hoping it will change with age because I like the decant version better and it's almost empty!

[devilot]

My Okayaki bottle that arrived yesterday does smell different than the decant I have (which I'm guessing is a month or two old by now). The decant version does feel "cooler" and more refreshing. The new one is sweeter and more floral. I too am hoping it will change with age because I like the decant version better and it's almost empty!

I'd gotten a low-level partial and it's a little floral, but can definitely detect the lab's snowy note in there (especially as it dries down). But if my not-yet-arrived 5ml smells more floral or more sweet, I'd be even more ecstatic! I love the way this blend smells!

 

ETA: I can just imagine it now, various "ISO snowy Okayaki" vs "ISO sweeter Okayaki."

Edited May 12, 2010 by devilot