Mata Hari

[dreadeddragon]

... Her scent is striking and bold with a delicate yet dark undertone: five roses with soft jasmine, warmed by vanilla, fig, tonka bean and mahogany, spiced with a drop of coffee bean.

In the bottle: Wow coffee. And rose. Not too sure about that combo there.

First on: This is really complex and different. Very floral, very jasmine, which doesn't get along with me remotely, but the coffee and tonka warm it up without detracting from the femininity of it.

Drydown: Now the floral note has gone and I'm left with a vanilla coffee that isn't foody at all.

Overall: My first reaction was to swap it, but I think I'll keep the imp and see if I like it more.

[megank4]

My first review!

Got home from work and found my package from a swap sitting in my mailbox from the wonderful hadaverde. Couldn't decide which to try first, so just picked one at random, and it was Mata Hari.

In the imp: coffee and John Paul Gaultier Classique (one of my favorite perfumes). Must be the vanilla, rum, and tonka bean notes.

Initial impression: coffee, perhaps with a dollop of Irish Cream, mixed in a with a spicy tea shop. Feeling quite hungry now, and I don't think this is helping. It is giving me a slightly nauseated feeling. Will have to try again tomorrow when I am not ready to eat someone.

[fierylioness]

I've tested this a few times, and I have to say, all I pick up from Mata Hari is intense rose, a whisper of jasmine when my skin gets it right, and then the (faint) bitterness of coffee after a few hours' worth of dry-time. I love it, and I plan on keeping it... after I get an imp for a friend.

 

I only wish I could pick out more of the vanilla or the fig.. I think my skin amps the florals something fierce.

[hkhm]

imp: rose and jasmine and a touch of coffee.

 

wet: rose. a sort of bubblegum rose with a dousing of jasmine. i find myself wishing it was all coffee and fig and vanilla because this doesn't smell very good on me.

 

dry: the good news is that the rose did not go soapy on me. the bad news is that rose and jasmine just do not smell very good on me.

[bryghtrose]

The coffee overpowered everything. No florals, just coffee.

[TrailerTrashPrincess]

i remember this as having been one of the first dozen or so BPAL i tried... i also remember not liking it. trying it again today as i go through an imp-box cleaning out!

impsniff: Jasmine, in all her filthy glory

on skin: jasmine and ... some other things that the jasmine is trying to consume.

anything with jasmine in it... my skin swallows any other notes completely and the evil that is jasmine is the only thing i can detect.

Edited December 6, 2007 by TrailerTrashPrincess

[Emerrific]

I seriously am in love with this! Fig, Mahogany, Rose, Vanilla, Tonka, and Coffee are some of my favorite notes! Jasmine has been hit or miss with me, but backed up by my all-star notes it stays true and wonderful. The scent is sexy floral (jasmine and rose) with a slight coffee scent making it a little edgier, the vanilla, tonka and tonka make it sweet and warm, a little more sweert-earthiness is added by the fig, and the mahogany gives it a nice woodsy backing. Yummmm.

 

This blend has elements that are womanly and sexy and mysterious and bookish and intelligent and complicated and strong and down to earth and sophisticated too! It smells like the me I want to be!!!

 

Oh goodness, This is love, and I neeeeed a big bottle!

[terrenity]

Oil Age: 8 months; 5ml bottle

 

In the Bottle: Jasmine! Dashing out and trampling all the other scents. The woods make the jasmine very dry, but I can't distinguish them from the flowers.

 

On: The jasmine in Mata Hari continues to be aggressive and assaulting. This stage has a lot of throw and is very strong. I can occasionally smell the vanilla and what I assume to be tonka, but likely only because I'm looking for them.

 

It takes at least an hour on me for the jasmine to exhaust itself. Then the throw decreases until I can smell the jasmine only near my wrist. About an hour and a half to two hours after application, the jasmine is gone completely: utterly spent. At this point, the scent becomes a sweet, rich vanilla... almost exactly the scent of whole dried vanilla beans. It's very dark and delicious, and very much a 'skin scent'. This is the part of Mata Hari that I love... it's seductive and rich, but still sophisticated. This Mata Hari doesn't throw herself at men, but seduces them with her gorgeous looks and sophistication. Sadly, by the time she reaches this stage, I can only smell her with my nose against my wrist.

 

Summary: On me, this is a distinctly two-staged scent. The first is all about the jasmine. Even the rose, which I usually amp, is nowhere to be found. The second is pure, dark vanilla beans. I love it, but can't smell it without huffing my wrist.

 

Verdict: Mata Hari is a scent that I don't dislike, but also don't really like. I think I'll have to pass on jasmine blends in the future.

 

Edited to add: My boyfriend, who bought this for me, made a nasty face for the first time in my BPAL history when he sniffed this in the bottle.

 

Edited again: I smelled some Jasmine SN at Whole Foods today and realized the funny sour rose I thought I was smelling was actually jasmine! Oops. So That essentially changed my whole review.

Edited February 23, 2008 by terrenity

[maribouquet]

This is lovely and almost works on me. Were it not for jasmine...

[violetflower]

Hmm, when I first put this on it smelled smoky.

 

Rose, rose, rose, rose, rose, which is getting more powerful by the second, I may have to go and wash this one off!

 

As soon as I saw 5 roses in the description I thought, uh oh, but I wanted to give it a chance. It is becoming quite bitter smelling on me now.

 

Not for me.

 

[ImperatrixMundi]

Rose and coffee may sound weird but they do go well together. Unfortunately the rose is very dominant. The coffee note is lovely and the whole blend is pretty sweet with all the vanilla, tonka and fig in the background. Never smelled any jasmine though.

 

The rose is just too much for me.

[djsiberia]

this scent has roses and coffee and vanilla and i was hoping it would work with my chemistry, but alas it turned into smelling like floral mush, i believe its the jasmine and roses together that create this floral band-aid smell on me.

[zomathesadist]

In the imp: strong floral...JASMINE! NOOO! I was really hoping the jasmine would be soft.

 

Wet: extremely floral. I get no tonka, no coffee. Just jasmine. I dislike jasmine greatly.

 

I had to wash it off. But I used the rest of my imp as a room scent and then, I could smell the rose, too. Just jasmine and rose, though.

 

 

drag! I really wanted to like it, but alas.

[ouch!]

This blend is crazy!!!! It was a frimp from the lab, I never would have ordered it so.. thanks labbies!

 

It's exrtremely powerful is the first thing I'd like to say, and it's the first blend I've tried with coffee in it.

Jasmine and coffee kick you in the face at first. And I'm getting alot of complaints from people that sit around me at work. It's causing such a stir that it's making me feel mischevious! I want to apply lots and lots and make people talk!!!!

Some people think it's horrible and some people really like it!!!

To me, before I knew what the ingredients were I thought this smelled like pure Gardenia. How wrong was I. It's the Jasmine!

 

Anyway.......Luckily for me my Chemistry amps vanilla, so... that does come forward on drydown. The coffee bean dissapears. But the Jasmine just stays and stays and stays with the roses bareley noticable.

 

This really has some staying power too.. one application across the wrist seems to last for hours.

I think I'll send this to someone in my next swap though.

 

ETA: I think I can only truly appreciate this blend once it's dried down completley. And I mean COMPLETLEY. The vanilla softens what otherwise was a crazy powerful blend and the roses appear.

(I'm still getting over the throw of this blend, it's a rival to Highwayman)

Edited February 22, 2008 by ouch!

[Reaver]

Mata Hari

 

 

I got convinced by reviews of this scents being deliciously coffee-tinted, sticky but still light. All I get is roses. I LIKE roses, but roses WITH something. Roses with coffee would have been nice. It doesn’t have any personality, is light with no throw to speak of but kind of lingers wetly instead of morphing as most BPAL scents do. After a while, a vanilla scent is behind the roses, but you have to concentrate to find it, and fight through the strong sickly roses that refuse to fade to allow you to get to the vanilla. By the time they have faded, the vanilla is gone.

 

Conclusion: A bit boring, to be frank.

 

5/10. It’s a nice light rose scent. But not half as good as other rose blends like King of Hearts.

[taramarie]

On me, Mata Hari is a strong, deep floral. I thought it was plumeria at first, then when it dried I realized it's jasmine. I don't detect any of the other notes, which is a real pity. Here's hoping aging will help.

[donnatron]

Imp: Thin, jasmine-y scent. I catch a whiff of rose. I'm apprehensive just because I do love my rose but the jasmine seems to be dominant.

 

Wet: Until I put it on, of course. The roses open the show and this smells like a lush bouquet for the first few minutes. This stage is beautiful. It's not what I was expecting, but it is delectable.

 

Dry: Lovely. Heady and floral with the jasmine peaking out to temper the roses a bit. The vanilla is in the background doing its thing, the mahogany behaves itself and just adds a woodsy depth. The fig lends a sultry dusty scent. This is so well blended and so bold and just lovely.

 

Throw: Marvelous. It's on the back of my hand, I'm currently slathered in about five different oils and its definitely the dominant scent on me.

 

Overall: I want to pull my hair into a chignon and scent the nape of my neck. This is a very powerful, sophisticated and womanly scent. It makes me feel very sexy and in control. This was made for low cut dresses and elbow length gloves.

[rusty]

nothing but coffee in the bottle and wet on the skin. the rose comes out strong later on, but never manages to come on center stage and its just an amalgam of floral coffee dark sweetness. the other notes darken the scent more than it sweetens. the coffeeness goes down significantly but never disappears. I liked the cofffee though! it was sweet! probably the fig and tonka?

 

very nice.

[savage_rose]

At first, the jasmine smells rank and overpowers everything. But then it calms down, and I can smell rose! And a lovely honeyed, spicy warmth. Very spy-like morphing! You think it will be terrible, but then it's lovely.

[DARKBEAUTY28]

Wow what a morpher! When I first applied I literally said "Oh sick!" The coffee note kind of had a caca smell when first applied. I had to see what the notes of this one is so I looked it up on here. I let it sit on my skin like others said to and whoa, does this scent dry down gorgeous! No more caca coffee! It turns into a pretty jasmine-rose scent. I notice that I tend to pick scents with jasmine notes and if you like jasmine as well then this scent is a great one to try. Just get past the initial sniff!

Edited May 17, 2008 by DARKBEAUTY28

[tativa]

i think my skin eats up coffee (remembers misc u)... i never smell coffee in this at all. And it doesn't morph on me... weird.

Its not an unpleasant scent, but it smells like a flatter Medea on me, all florals...

Where is my coffee you whore?! *referring to Mata Hari of course*

Still... flat jasmine/rose. As it fades away fairly quickly.

Its very lady like though, and somewhat sophisticated. It just lacks any depth or character on my skin.

 

I might have to get ahold of another imp at some point and retry it.

[annaham]

Loved this one in the imp. However, my skin didn't react so well, as it turned from OH YAY JASMINE to COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE.

 

I wanted to like this one, but it just did not work on my skin!

[goblinshark]

I am not getting coffee from this, neither in the imp nor on my skin.

In the imp it smells almost overpoweringly floral (I love love floral scents but it had me worried) and sweet.

 

On my skin it smells like honeysuckle, rose and warm skin. There's something very 'delicious skin' about it, very natural. It's creamy and soft and warm and beautiful. I have actually not been able to review any of the other imps I've purchased since I tried this one out, because all I want to wear it this one. I think it may become my first 5ml bottle purchase and my signature scent.

 

It lasts pretty well, too; I put it on around 6:30 this morning and I can still catch whiffs of it now, at 3:30 pm. Phenomenal for my skin which tends to devour scents.

 

5 out of 5, hands-down my favorite Lab scent I've tried so far.

[brsis]

Initial thoughts: This is one of the ones I would have originally dismissed as too girly, despite the fact that sitting right there is one fantastic lineup - vanilla, fig, tonka bean, mahogany and coffee - that sounds tailored to my skin chemistry. The problem, as always, is the florals - rose and jasmine = my skin chemistry goes nuts. Never the less, I live in hope of a rose blend I can wear!

 

In the imp: Woah, that... wow. Ok. That smells like... really sleezy office party perfume! I think it's the combination of the roses with the coffee...

 

On the wrist, wet: Hmmm... it's hard to say what I'm smelling here other than coffee, and the weird fuggy thing rose does on my skin. But the blend is much more complex than that. I'll have to see how it behaves on the drydown, because at the moment the rose is ruining it for me.

 

Twenty minutes later: This is, I'm sure, a really nice blend, but lo-and-behold - the rose is misbehaving as usual and on me, it's unwearable. Such a pity.

 

Verdict: Swap pile

 

Tl;Dr: This blend is heavily dominated by the rose, which doesn't like me.

[Andrea912]

Bottle: I smell the floral, but it is covered by the mellow vanilla and tonka. This might work.

 

Wet: The jasmine and rose is stronger. Overwhelmingly so. I so wanted to smell vanilla, coffee, and tonka...all I got was floral. Ew. I'll see what happens when it dries, but right now I don't love it.

 

Two hours later: jasmine and rose is overpowering; I smell like a sachet from the dollar store...or old lady panty drawers (and no, I don't no about that last one for sure...I just have a wild imagination!)

 

Verdict: NO.

Edited June 26, 2008 by Andrea912