Love and Pain

[rayvn1]

Lavender, Balkan tobacco, black musk, dark vanilla, and golden copaifera.

This was a big burst of lavender as expected, but it mellowed out into a really interesting blend of light and dark scents. This need further testing for sure. iiiiiinteresting

edit to add scent description Edited July 3, 2009 by rayvn1

[voodoocatwoman]

This is sweetened lavender- it's reminding me of something from my childhood. It turns slightly powdery and develops a bit of a bite (which I think is the tobacco) but I like it. It's a very comforting fragrance.

Edited October 8, 2009 by voodoocatwoman

[Ohmaude]

Love and Pain starts out as a herbal Lavender in the bottle. On the skin it quickly goes from this to a tarry, black acrid scent. Almost like lavender, black licorice and burnt tobacco. This stage is unpleasant. I'm guessing Black Musk may be the culprit.

 

In the end, after an hour it gets sweeter and lighter, pipe tobacco musk with a hint of lavender. Very Masculine and what have you. I'm still deciding whether to let it stick around.

[devilot]

Love and Pain

In the Bottle: Something v sharp. Sharply cologne-like. Eeks.

 

Wet: Starts off with whatever notes are creating that sharpness again. Shifting into lavender.

 

Drydown: The slightest hint of darker notes like the tobacco and musk, but really, this is all about the lavender and whatever that insanely sharp/ bright note is.

 

Verdict: I really dislike the scent in the bottle and wet. All in all, I wish I got more tobacco, musk, and vanilla than the other notes. This is nothing like I thought it'd be. Glad this'll be off to the swaps!

[Evilynn]

In the imp: A burst of sharp lavender.

 

Wet on the skin:: Lavend...heeey tobacco! Lots and lots and lots of tobacco. In fact, after 15 minutes this smells like an ashtray on me.

 

Drydown: After an hour or so a bit of the lavender starts peering out from under the mounds of tobacco ashes. It's an odd scent and rather sharp. The only vanilla I've seen was in the scent description, it's invisble on my skin.

[SophieCedar]

Wet: ok I opened the imp and the cap popped, went flying, and sprayed a trajectory of Love & Pain all over the computer. Therefore, the scent is uhm.. very present right now. This is a really interesting one. As love and pain can be, it's all encompassing, confusing, alluring, dark, and soothing all at once. My brain wants to explode due to the emotional malfunction this is causing. The lavender is strong and soothing. Underneath is a strong current of musk and resinous notes. Balkan tobacco is unlike any I've smelled in the past. It has a port wine-like quality to it. The vanilla is so dark, and in combination with the tobacco and musk, it translates as tonka-esque, if you smelled it blindly.

 

Drydown: apparently my coffee is starting to work. This review is much more verbose than the previous one..(which was basically filled with mono-syllabic grunts of "mm good"... ) The lavender mellows without getting powdery. The tobacco takes forefront with dark vanilla and lavender just provides this sweet and sad backdrop. golden copaifera is warm and glowing too. Really amazing scent. One that I'll be coming back to over and over to try and figure out.

Edited February 19, 2011 by SophieCedar

[Dybael]

Wet: There's lavender, which is nice... and there's something dark and wet and grungy, which isn't nearly as nice. Soggy tobacco? I'm not very good with notes. I keep huffing my wrist because it's such a new scent category to me - I don't really like it, but it's not oh god must wash off now like Ouija turned out.

 

Dry: I'm getting more of a resin-y scent now. That'd be the copal, right? Now that I'm no longer being inundated with wet tobacco the scent is significantly more tolerable. While this dark, resinous herbal scent is too masculine for me to really see myself wearing often, I'm not ready to wash it off either.

 

Later: The longer this is on, the more the copal comes out to play, and something that might be the musk? The tobacco and lavender have retreated to the background - I can't make them out as individual notes any more, just as vague aspects that temper the dusty gold resin. I never got any vanilla in this at all.

[calivianya]

Wet: Whoa, lavender. That's all I smell initially. It's crisp, fresh lavender plucked straight off the plant. I think I need to make some lavender tea now, because I just got a powerful craving.

 

Drying: I'm starting to get the other notes. I get an almost TKO vibe from the lavender and vanilla, but the other notes are holding it in check. This is good, because I found TKO sickeningly sweet. There's something else herbal in here besides the lavender - maybe the golden copaifera, whatever that is - and I'm getting more of the idea of black musk than I'm getting black musk itself. There is something dark about this blend. I haven't noticed the tobacco.

 

Dry: This is the only one of my impulse Salons that I've decided immediately is a keeper. It is a dark, solemn lavender, and the lavender hangs on more than 10 minutes. I am very pleased!

 

Edit: Okay, it hangs on more than 10 minutes... but less than 40. It's gone. There's just that dusty after-thought of lavender left. I am very disappointed because this was beautiful. I have GOT to find a way to make lavender stick around.

Edited July 19, 2012 by calivianya

[mymymai]

ITB: It's a bit hard to smell, but I can pick up the copaifera and a little lavender, but it is super faint in the bottle.

 

Wet: Gosh, it is still hardly detectable even on my skin. I have to concentrate, but when I do, it's all lavender. I think my cold or whatever it is is catching up with my nose.

 

Dry: Ok, now I'm getting something gloriously sweet, like warm honey mixed with amber and vanilla, plus the edition of lavender. It's sweetly soothing.

[JazzieCazzie]

Frimped an imp.

 

IN THE IMP: Lavender lavender lavender.

 

Dabbed in crook of arm.

 

WET: Super duper lavender with a sharpness which, perhaps prompted by the list of notes, I recognized as tobacco but not smoky tobacco, rather like the smell of one of my dad's unlit unfiltered Camels.

 

DRYDOWN: Still lavender with tobacco and musk. I get NO vanilla, which is good. The musk is more noticeable on the drydown.

 

OVERALL: I love this and am glad I received this frimp. I need to add this to my wishlist. I know I had a bottle of this when it came out (I did not review it at the time) and I did love it but though I don't remember the details I know I swapped it for a holy grail scent.

 

On a scale of 1-5, a 4.8

[Lucchesa]

Like the very first reviewer, I get essentially single note lavender from Love and Pain. As always, it goes on in a blast of lavender; unusually, the lavender lasts and lasts, but I really wanted to hear from the tobacco, the vanilla, the black musk...

[dementia_divine]

In the decant: I’m mostly getting the lavender and tobacco from the vial.

 

Wet: Lavender, tobacco, and lemon-y black musk are the most prominent notes, with the tobacco getting stronger as the oil sits on my skin. As it dries, the copal emerges and adds even more smokiness to the scent.

 

Dry: The tobacco and copal have gotten a lot stronger and have become the main players. The lavender is still present, but not as strong as it was before. It’s shot through with strong black musk. There’s only a tinge of the dark vanilla.

 

Verdict: I love lavender, but this too smoky, musky, and masculine for me. There isn’t enough vanilla to tame the darker notes. It was nice to get to try it, though!