Havisham

[MissAnthropy]

The embodiment of heart-wrenching loss, torment, of mad, obsessive cruelty and chilly revenge. This is the scent of a frost-limed wedding bouquet, frozen forever in time.

First Whiff (from bottle): Mmmm. As much as I figured this would be a very heavy scent, I was way off base.

Extraordinary! Fresh, clean, and floral. Specifically, a very 'watery floral' scent. It's already winning my affection. This oil REALLY embodies "Miss Havisham" - cool/icy and a little minty (frozen in time), watery (like tears), floral (wedding bouquet). Perfect, just perfect. There seems to be herbal hints I can't quite put a finger on though. BUT, everything is working really well together, and nothing is stepping on any toes.

On (still wet) : My skin has pulled out the more herbal hints of this scent, and pushed the floral hints into the background. I rather enjoy that this happened, because the floral notes were almost getting to be too much for me.

An hour later (dry): STILL going strong. No reapplication needed. THIS means bonus points for this scent! Lasting power is something I always look for in a scent.

Later in the evening: She's pretty much gone, and thus, it's time for a reapplication. Again, I catch a whiff of her straight from the bottle that makes me glad I bought a 10ml of this scent!!!

If ever our Lab Goddess, Beth, created a meaningful, and memorble scent, Havisham is it!


-Leslie

[foolssilver]

havisham evokes disturbingly profound sadness.

 

i smell a faint breath of roses, a bit of citrus that somehow deepens the misery. and honestly, i smell tears. cold tears.

 

as i expected, it is similar to snow white but it is almost the opposite in mood. havisham is delicate and floral, but has a deepness to it (some sort of resin? i am terrible at guessing ingredients.)

 

very finely crafted!

[fairywingmaker]

I'm getting an icey lime? not too heavy though. As I wear this awhile, the floral starts coming through. I'm really bad at determining the florals. I'm not finding this to be a rosey floral. Rose usually goes powdery on me, and it's not like that at all. Could it be lilies? I really like this...

[Laurel the Woodfairy]

Hooray! My first limited edition scent--MissAnthropy decanted an imp for me. Miss Havisham is my favorite Dickens character, and I've been sooo looking forward to this one.

 

Has anyone ever smelled White Linen by Estee Lauder? Havisham has some of the same notes--the clear white floral, fresh and unforgettable, a touch of rose and many other notes--but it has a brooding quality that it totally different from WL. Not exactly sad or malicious on me, but just brooding--like she's pondering the best revenge for her unrequited love. (Since my Mom always wears WL, this is a little unnerving for me!).

 

I really, really like this. It does seem to capture the character. You know what I want to do with this? I saved and preserved my bouquet of white roses from my first wedding--although the album is in a trunk somewhere at my parents' house, the bouquet sits in a vase on my desk precisely because it always seemed such a Miss Havisham prop to me. (Brian doesn't mind. Really.) I think it would be the most appropriate thing on earth for that "frozen" wedding bouquet to smell like Havisham. Heehee

 

Edited to add: Havisham has become my all-time favorite BPAL...and my very first Big Bottle! It's gorgeous and appropriate year-round, because it just smells so *me*. The florals were perfect for spring, but now the "frozen" quality seems perfect for winter. This is the leading contender for Signature Scent..er, once I've tried a couple hundred more oils, of course.

Edited October 3, 2004 by Laurel_the_Woodfairy

[rdeadline]

Something in this formula doesn't agree with me. I put it on in the morning and was in the worst mood all day. As soon as I put on Blue Moon I was back in a good mood! This is one bottle headed for the swamper!

[grrrlennyl]

at first: definitely a cold, almost ice-cold, floral. lovely, though. can't wait to wear it.

on: yes. a crisp, bitterly cold floral. lovely and interesting, and even a bit unsettling.

half an hour later: this a bit biting, but still nice. and definitely still cold. i like this so far.

1 hour later: now, it's turned into a floral with something foreboding about it underneath. something icy and unwelcoming.

3.5 hours later: it's a bit sweeter now, but that happens to me a lot. however, i still wouldn't call it a sweet floral, since it still has planty of bite to it.

overall: this lasted well on my skin and didn't go overly sweet on me either. it's a nice, crisp kind of floral, not a loving, embracing one. very different. i'll be using up my imp.

[Astarte]

I love cool white scents and this is no exception, it settles extremely well on me. I can smell white roses (first flower to spring to mind), with lemon and lime as the perfect accord to settle that bundle on.

 

This is a perfume not to be triffled with.

[TheDarkMother]

I got this from Tygher and I am SO thrilled about it. I missed it when it first came out (I was still a newbie and tried to buy an imp of it, silly me.) and I was really upset about it. So she decanted me a bottle of this and June Gloom!! YAY! This is the first one that I've gotten to so far.

 

In the Bottle: WHITE. A Crisp white scent that is very hard to describe otherwise.

 

On Me: This is definately a very elegant fragrance, something to be worn with a dress and your head held high. In fact, this reminds me exactly of my bridal bouquet: White Stargazer lilies with delicate white tearoses, greens that are delicate and droop almost like green lace, small bits of lemon leaves, the light purple/white of waxflower, all of it tapering down towards the floor. It was heavy too!

 

I still have it, dried and in my china cabinet, displayed for everyone to see. This is that feeling that I get, a woman looking over the dried bridal bouquet and thinking of that beautiful day when she was wed and full of newness, the nostalgic tear that runs down her cheek as she remembers the first time that they danced as husband and wife.

 

I am in love with this scent!!! I wish I had gotten a bigger bottle.

[k00kaburra]

In bottle: Cold lime, icy without being sharp. When the bottle is closed I can smell the rose faintly, but once the bottle is opened I smell nothing but the lime.

 

On me: My skin has pulled the rose forward and made this into a light rosy scent. If I had to pick one word for the mood it evokes this would be melancholy. It is a rose once soaked in sorrow and now left to linger in brooding anger. I like it. It invokes a dark atmosphere while remaining a light fragrance.

[TrayLynn]

The lab has such a way with roses. This is what I call my cold rose scent. It reminds me of the florist when you open the cooler with all the roses in it. It is crisp and cold but with the warmth of the rose blended throughout the oil. This is my favorite rose blend yet.

[glampyre]

I love havisham!

 

It's so rounded and pretty!

 

It's bright and clear and almost frozen-smelling. I can't pick out any specific notes, but I think it's great for grey days I want to revel in.

 

This'll be great for when I wake up, it's raining, and I have to schlep my whole self to work when I what I really want is to go back to bed.

[TygherRayn]

In the bottle this is very floral, very sweet, but at the same time it's very dark and moody. I definitely smell rose in this, and like with every other rose scent, I worry a little about that. But it seems to be balanced with something else, something greener, almost like Rose Red but not quite so green.

 

Having just put this on, it's indeed a rather rose-neavy scent at first, but it doesn't get the almost throat-closing cloying feel that most rose blends seem to do on me. There's a green-ness, something maybe herbal, though I don't know what note it could be. I don't get mint from this as I might expect for a coolness, yet it does indeent smell 'chilly' so to speak. As it wears I realize where that green-ness is coming from. Lime! I'm thrilled too, because I love all the lime scents I've tried so far. The rose is still very much there, but it mellows and blends with the cool lime, and perhaps another floral.

 

Havisham seemed to vanish on my skin after a while, though at the moment my nose is a bit touchy. It's probably still there, I just can't smell it. but I'm not worried about it. I don;t mind doing retouches with this one.

[Ina Garten Davita]

Recieving a bottle of Havisham, quite unexpectly, really made my day. Love you Beth.

 

First Impression: Roses, but unlike any roses I've smelled before.

 

Second Impression: Hauntingly beautiful and yes, chilly. It's like the rare and beautiful bloom beside her dead sisters, after the weather has turned cold, bravely clinging to the season.

 

Final Analysis: Sad and chilly floral, but also extrodinarily elegant. This is one Limited Edition I passed on as I imagined it would smell like a mean old lady. I was ever so wrong and just thrilled that I've been given a second chance. I will treasure this bottle!

[malanna]

I forgot to add a review before I sent this off to Laurel_the_Woodfairy, so this review is based on what I remember of it when I tried in back in September.

 

To me, this is a yellow scent. It's not yellow in that it really strikes me as a floral or citrus scent, but in that it's yellow in the way that a lot of things turn slightly yellow over time (photographs, lace, etc.). It's really hard for me to describe the notes. I think there's a tad bit of citrus, because I think there must be some for me to have gotten the yellow imagery. This is a white floral, but when I smelled it, that's not what came to mind. It smelled like--well, more like it made me think of--looking at something through slightly yellowed plastic, plastic because it shows more aging over time. I suppose I got that imagery because it's an aloof scent. It is a bit cold, especially in the way that it distances itself from others.

[jj_j]

I'm coming off of a search for just the right rose, now that Whip has crossed my path, and tea roses have never been my favorite of the bunch. Tea roses are what I expected from Havisham - white and yellow and pink in a wedding bouquet - but they're not as crisp and, well ... uptight? as I thought when I sniffed out of the bottle.

 

Havisham is a more open, slightly faded rose. Not dried rose, but a tea rose that's bloomed and moved past its peak to that slightly rumpled, droopy stage. It makes it much softer and more nostalgic than other tea rose scents. There's an interesting complement of citrus that I wouldn't have pegged as lime; my nose can't sort it out of the roses, but I would have guessed orange blossom, with an emphasis on orange zest, and a bit less on the blossom.

 

This is a straightforward scent - not lots of layers, and moving in its simplicity. There's not much that's more "all my eggs in one basket" than a wedding bouquet, and a wedding is something that moves half the audience to tears, in part because of that simplicity and promise.

 

Impressions are all about the person getting them, and I have to say that Havisham doesn't make me think of Miss Havisham; it's not bitter or hard enough for the woman she is in my mind. The scent, however, is soft and flowing and truly lovely, and the impression of a wedding bouquet is firmly entrenched for me.

[shriekingviolet]

Initial Impression:

Sweet, cold lime tinged blend. Cultured and interesting.

 

After Wearing It:

Havisham started out on my skin as a crisp, cool, white floral that was slightly astringent smelling. I could definitely smell roses here, bathed in salty aquatic notes. I don't pull off roses or white florals well and don't have a strong liking for aquatic notes, so I wasn't too terribly pleased with it. But it was still very interesting, and the blend made me think of the shock that comes right before a huge disappointment. That numbness that comes when you don't know what to think or what to feel because the news that has just been delivered is so unexpected and devastating.

 

After a few hours, Havisham sweetened a bit and lost its salt and the elements of the white floral notes that I generally find off-putting. The rose backed off as well, and the blend just turned into a very pleasant but subtle elegant floral scent. Quite a nice surprise.

 

Final Thoughts:

I've grown to like Havisham, particularly in the end stages, but it's not really me. It's just too floral and too white for my taste. Yet it's so hard to part with!

[LupaWulf]

This morning Havisham spoke to me, so I decided to give it a whirl.

 

Very cool florals in the bottle... possibly roses and lillies showing the most. I wasn't sure about wearing this one, since I'm not a floral person.

 

When on my wrist, gentle roses came out the most. Not old lady roses (which was my greatest worry -especially as a banker.... I experience more elderly perfume this way!), but light rosebuds on a sort of herbal background.

 

I can not quite place the background, not minty to me, but maybe sort of grassy... definatly the garden- especially after a slight cold snap in summer.

 

This one did last all day on me. Really made me ponder and wonder what is in the background of the roses... lillies maybe? I'm not totally sure even to this moment. Merigolds? Sort of... kinda....

 

Either way, I was glad it has a subtile dignity. Quite yet powerful. A scent to wear, that does not scream to be noticed, but lightly whispers in your ear- its breath tickleing you and sending shivers down your spine.

 

I see why so many people desperatly seek this one out.

[paperdoll]

Initial Sniff: FLOWERS!! Yes indeedy! I smell roses for certain but there are others here as well. They are cut flowers for sure - wedding bouquet as opposed to rose bush - but I'm not sure why. Am I just being influenced by the name? Perhaps, but I think it is more than that. Interesting.

Wearing: ROSE! All else is drowned out, I'm afraid. It's a body chemistry thang, don't you know. It is a chilly rose bouquet. I don't normally like rose, but lime comes to the rescue! I swear, you mix lime with anything that my skin normally hates and it becomes bearable. This does have fairly good staying power.

Final Impressions: I haven't worn this since I received it this summer, and I really don't remember it being so one-dimensional. I'll have to try it again at a different time of the month to see what it does. As it stands, this rose is wearable but not terribly exciting.

[harlequin]

To me, this one is definitely a clean white floral.

 

Wearing it, at first, there's a bit of something citrus I can pick up that is only really characterized by it's sharp citrusy-ness. It wasn't particularly descernable as grapefruit, or lime, or lemon, or... whatever. just.. citrus.

 

That lasts for a few minutes and then fades away leaving a lovely blend of flowers. I don't pick out any rose from it, but then again, I can't pick out any single kind of flower from it at all. And happily, this one didn't give me a headache! *squee!*

 

Now, about 9 hours after I put it on, there's still a vague clean linen smell floating around, and even that's quite nice.

[sarada]

Yay! I never thought I'd get a chance to sample this, as I was not yet browsing the site regularly enough when it was released to notice the limited edition scents or to get in on them before they were gone. (Oh, the dark ages of my existence!)

 

I just got a teeny sample and have a full imp on the way, just in time for the season that I think this scent will be perfect for.

 

First I should mention that I had always misread the description to say "frozen forever in lime", so I was prepared for a lime-rose scent, and I think that it actually matches that after all. It definitely comes across as the most tender, fresh green rosebud possible, still frosted with the very last ice of winter before spring's warmth releases it. It is also one of the BPAL scents that most reminds me of perfume in the perfumey sense -- but without the alcohol, of course. This is a very fresh, crisp, rain-soaked floral, without any of the associations that I have with "perfume" though. "Perfume" makes me think of old ladies caked in powdery makeup wearing wide Easter bonnets with a cloying artificial cloud hovering around them. BPAL perfumes just capture what is the most beautiful in nature, and although I do not go for florals in general this is one of the few that I could see myself wearing.

 

I definitely could relate the rose in this to that most beautiful cold rose in Old London; the main sensations that I get are a tender green, the palest pink and a frosted white. I'm thinking this will be the thing to wear around Easter this year, when frost on the ground does battle with the first flowers. I hope they bring it back some day, I would definitely make this one of the very few floral bottles that I buy.

[Macha]

Ooo! Did I forget to review this one?

 

My little imp of Havisham (kindly decanted by Ivyandpeony for me) is no longer in my possession, but I do remember that it was not something that agreed with me. Within minutes...nay...within seconds, of hitting my skin, Havisham turned into industrial strength soap and stayed that way for the rest of the day. Me and my fickle, unforgiving chemical relationship with rose scents strikes again.

 

This made me sad.

 

On the good side, I knew the imp would find another loving home, and indeed, it did.

[Penance]

Origin:

 

I got an imp of this from Spark a very long time ago.

 

First sniff:

 

This isn't really my first first sniff (I've had this for quite awhile, but haven't worn it yet), but it is my first sniff before wearing it, so it still counts.

 

Let me preface this by saying that I don't like smelling like flowers. It's important, believe me. That being said, Havisham is actually a beautiful floral blend. it's very soft and unassuming smelling and feminine without being in-your-face floral. I'm terrible at picking out floral notes but, hazarding a guess, I'd say...lilac, white rose and maybe gardenia. Of course, I could be entirely wrong. It wouldn't surprise me.

 

Wet on skin:

 

This is so pretty and feminine (and so different from my normal scent choices). It reminds me of a scented talcum powder my mom used to use when I was very small, but I can't remember what scent it was, only that it was a very similar soft, sweet floral. There's definitely rose in here; there's no question in my mind because I know very well how rose behaves on my skin. The other notes I'm not so sure about. I wouldn't be surprised if there was lilac hiding in here somewhere, although that may just be wishful thinking on my part.

 

Dry down:

 

As Havisham dries, the rose note (and I'm positive it's rose) becomes more and more prominent. It's a cross between an unopened bud and a full-blown bloom in scent and it's definitely a white smelling rose, if that makes sense.

 

The bottom line:

 

In spite of my floral (and specifically rose) aversion, I like Havisham. I'm tempted to wear it for my wedding, but I'm not so sure I want to chance fate, given the inspiration for this particular blend.

[UltraViolet]

In the bottle

watery, lightly sweet floral

 

On

LOVELY. White rose, including a green, herby, minty stem. It's also powdery and a tad sweet, like a white cloud. There is a note in here that is familiar to me, Lotus maybe? It's citrussy. Yes. I smell lemon or lime. It's a watery blend, and the BEST watery blend I've smelled to date.

Oh my goodness, let's see if I can get all the notes together for ya;

Fresh

Floral

Watery

Citrus

Sweet

Herby

And they all are so light and airy and go together beautifully.

 

30 minutes

Turns a bit soapier but nothing out of synch or yukky.

It's still freakin' Gorgeous, so fresh and clean smelling, albeit much less you then when I first put it on. But that's okay, I'd rather put more on then need to take it off.

 

Throw:

Light/Medium

 

Scent category:

Fresh Floral/Citrus/Watery/Green

 

Summary

Ethereal. Feminine and beautiful but in a icey way. In the same vein as Blue Moon, but different. Havisham is less floral and less strong then Blue Moon and of course there's no cucumber-y freshness in Havisham. There is a freshness in Havisham however, and it might even be a green but... it's softer, powdery.

This goes right up there in my top ten with Snow White, Blue Moon, Bewitched, etc.

Havisham needs to be in regular rotation for the love of God!

 

Purchase again?

Yes! A 10ml, 5ml, 20 imps in 20 swaps, whatever it takes.

 

1-5 rating, 5 being best.

5

[anmorata]

Havisham:

 

Wet: Strong floral. I don't smell the roses that others do.. I get a crisp, white lily. Heavily lily. It reminds me of a stronger lily than what I smelled in Grandmother of Ghosts, but somewhat similar.

 

Drydown: Still very white floral, moderately strong. It almost smells like there might be just the faintest of touch of ozone in this scent.

 

Long-term wear: I don't generally wear florals, but I might make an exception for this one. I'm betting that it would go wonderfully into bath salts, so I might give that a try.

[Rheliwen]

I knew this was going to be a heady floral, so I wasn't expecting on liking it. But...don't underestimate Beth's LEs. There's a reason they are special.

 

Havisham doesn't make my nose itch! It's like all those beautiful white florals in all their glory, without all the headaches and nose itches and other unpleasantries that come with them.

 

Because of the florals, it does get soapy, but it's creamy, expensive soap. In f54 you could definitely tell that you were sniffing quality shit. Havisham's the same deal to me.

 

Interesting...the drydown smells just like Rose Red. There's definitely rose in this, which always takes over on my skin.

 

Overall, Havisham smells like an expensive bouquet of florals in the refridgerator...seriously I know that doesn't sound glamorous, but there is definitely a hint of coldness in this. It's not frozen, just chilled.