Mata Hari

[Coldfire]

... 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.

imp from friend:


Imp: astringent-y rose
Wet on me: Too rosey
Drying Down: roses? roses.
Dry: All roses all the time.
sometimes perhaps a phantom trace of vanilla?
Oh this is just not for me. I'll put this in the pass
along pile.

[alicia_stardust]

This is mostly lush and voluptuous rose on me, but I get the coffee bean and vanilla. It's a completely unexpected combination but if you like roses this is worth trying out. It's very commanding and feminine.

[galahad]

In The Bottle

Just a touch of jasmine. Very faint

 

On Application

Dirty jasmine with a touch of rose.

 

Dry Down

The tonka emerges to muddy the scent even more. Even the dreaded rose is beaten down by the jasmine. Not me.

 

Rating (0-5)

0

[Anthemyst]

All roses until it dries, then it's ALMOST all roses with a hint of vanilla. It just smells very generic on me.

[marared]

Frimp from the lab. I whimpered when I saw five roses plus jasmine in the description, because it was almost guaranteed to be too heady for me. And it's definitely HELLO JASMINE! straight out of the imp and freshly applied on my wrist. The vanilla, the coffee, and the mahogany are waaaay down in there, so far that I wouldn't have noticed them if I wasn't looking for them. Fig is too delicate a scent to stand up in this.

 

Heady flowers like this just don't work on me, I'm afraid - they overwhelm everything else.

[carolinachiquita]

I thought I'd really like this one, FIVE roses and vanilla and coffee, but unfortunately my skin makes it go all weird. I get an initial burst of spicy rose and then my skin does it's thing and I get lots of jasmine with the occasional sniff of rose. Now that I've been wearing it for 10+ hours I can still smell it on my skin and the jasmine has gone and I get a faint and floral rose which is nice but it's not got that extra special kick that I like!

[ErinZ]

Wet in imp:

woody floral

 

Wet on skin:

mostly wood

 

Drydown:

immediately upon drying, the wood calms down a bit and the roses start popping out at me before settling into a good balance

 

Final impression:

It smells nice, but it doesn't quite fit my personality. I picture this being amazing on a man or on a woman with more sophistication and outward sensuality.

[hlinspjalda]

In the vial: Jasmine and a little vanilla. Are there really roses in here?

 

Wet: Whew! Really really jasmine! I bet this will be totally different in ten minutes, though.

 

Ten minutes: Nope, still really really jasmine. There's a tiny bit of something else really strong and sweet which is probably damask rose. This one is giving me a headache. If it's not better in half an hour, I may have to wash it off.

 

Forty-five minutes: Much softer and somewhat less sweet now, but it's still pretty much all jasmine. Normally I don't do at all well with jasmine, so maybe that's obscuring the finer subtleties of this one for me. But it's weird that the roses are so noticeable by their absence.

 

Two and a half hours: This one is teasing me. My wrists smell like straight soft jasmine, but from time to time I catch a whiff of the stuff under my jawline, which smells different. It's juicy, fruity, kind of grape-like. Why would it smell different on different pulse points?

 

Six hours: Now that the jasmine is gone, I can smell the rose very faintly, along with something else that might be the vanilla.

[isis33]

I'd never had tried this if it hadn't been a freebie- rose and jasmine usually don't like me at all. To the point of cat pee at times. And though the first rush of smell is very heady, it mellows down within minutes and I can't feel neither rose nor jasmine.

 

I smell the vanilla and the tonka bean and hint of fig, along with what must be mahogany and coffee bean- it's very spicy. After an hour or so it smells quite delicious, but very low-key- no throw at all.

 

I'll use it at work- I smell very nice, but am unlikely to disturb anyone with my scent.

[nightbiscuit]

Wet: I guess I must be one of those people who really amps jasmine, because WOAH Mata Hari is like a foofy jasmine syrup on me. Ech. I do smell the roses and and mahogany, which are nice, and I suspect that the shade of bitterness must be the coffee, but the jasmine is so strong it's overpowering.

 

Dry: The jasmine has quieted down from a keening shriek to a consistent wail. Mellower, but just not my style at all.

[zankoku_zen]

Oh god, it's roses and cat pee. The jasmine definitely smells prominently and very unpleasantly. Full of not.win.

[innocent]

Eek. I was worried about the coffee in this doing weird things... but the jasmine has taken over and is stomping my nose into a small puddle. Much headier than I like my florals, with an undertone that reminds me of clean diapers... not for me!

[NixieCakes]

Rosey rosey. All I get it roses, none of the fig, vanilla or mahogany, and definitely no coffee. This is a little too strong for my tastes.

[le fey]

Age:

about 1 1/2 years old

 

In the bottle:

rose and jasmine, with something green and soft

 

Wet:

mahogany comes to the front, with a floral background. I can get a bit of coffee and something sweet.

 

as it starts to dry something strange is happening... one wrist is pure rose sitting on a polished table... the other is pure jasmine. Now there's a trick!

 

Drydown:

this has become a generic rose/jasmine combination - I don't get vanilla or fig. It's okay, but I expect something more exotic from Mata Hari.

[crebbsgirl]

I really like coffee scents so I was pretty psyched to try this. Unfortunately, once I did, all I got was rose. Sigh... I think I may have to resign myself to the fact that I just can't wear rose scents.

[Czarina]

If this were a decant I would believe it was mislabeled, but it is a Lab frimp so I know I am reviewing the actual scent.

 

This is straight-up jasmine/camphor/Chanel No. 5 on me with an additional nasty plastic note (like a garment bag). No roses, no coffee, no glamour, no mystery. Feh.

 

Mindful of the comments above about the drydown, I waited, but the best I can say about this scent with my scent chemisty is that it faded fast enough that I didn't need to scrub my wrists to get the scent off.

 

Off to the swaps with you!

[obsidienne]

In the imp: ... this is kind of stanky! Jasmine and coffee and something woodsy (must be the mahogany). Where are the roses? Somehow, it also smells like soap.

 

On me: still kind of stanky. Jasmine, coffee bean, soapy mahogany. It smells weird.

 

Drying: some brightness emerges, still loads of coffee and jasmine. There are the roses! Very very subtly, but they are there.

 

Dry: Some improvement. I can detect all of the notes individually, but a slightly sour coffee soap smell is still the overall impression that I get.

 

Conclusion: This is a fascinating scent, although it's probably not meant for me. I've gone from hating it to liking it to hating it to liking it; that sort of schizophrenia tells me that either it's not working for me overall, or I just need to be in the right mood (I seem to be in the right mood at the moment). Compared to other perfumes, I've never smelled anything like it. That said, it has an earthy mysterious feel to it, so I think it's living up to its name... but not completely. I think I expected more from Mata Hari.

 

EDIT: My boyfriend hates jasmine so much that I have to let this go.

Edited June 10, 2013 by obsidienne

[Iceblink]

All those notes and I just smell JASMINE--but! This is a yummy, almost candied jasmine--I must have the vanilla and tonka to thank for that. It's not turning to soap or giving me a headache. That's rather amazing, so good for Mata Hari. I wish I could smell the other notes, though!

[teacrumb]

I wanted to like this! I love the smell of freshly ground coffee, but on me this was more like coffee that's gone bad. I think it could be the mahogany that doesn't work on me. I barely get anything floral or sweet or anything, just bitter, bitter, wood and coffee. Skin chemistry is evil sometimes!!!

[kjirstiben]

Gaaaaaah. In another instance of "my skin chemistry amps jasmine", this immediately turned into hard-line, full-on JASMINE to the max and stayed that way for hours. Eventually it became jasmine with a backdrop of dead flower water and stale coffee grounds. Sigh. I loved the idea of this scent but jasmine and I don't work together well.

[Mousesong]

Got this in a swap!

 

I don't get even the slightest tinge of coffee in any of the stages. In the imp, wet, and mostly-dry-but-not-sunk-in-yet, this smells like a department store perfume, although I can't put my finger on what. It went through a stage of being sickeningly sweet on me, but it's settled down and I quite like it. The department store feel has vanished, as has the oft-mentioned Jasmine Assault, and Mata Hari is soft, sensual, and warm. One of the only florals I ever smelled that didn't immediately think of an old lady. The throw is almost nil to me, but I'll have to update later when I'm not wearing four perfumes and let you know if it changes when there's not so much to drown it out (oh god, Dee, just shut up for one second, will you?). It is a bit soapy, but in an expensive, bondgirl-probably-bathes-in-this way. Not soapy in the way you'd think.

 

I think I'll wear this to work tomorrow and see how it sits on me, and update this. I initially was not fond of this at all, but it's growing on me. Once I get past the stage where something is cloyingly sweet and pink-smelling, it's pretty gorgeous. I'm not big on florals but I'm tentatively glad I tried this!

 

Mmm. If this ends up having decent throw I may have to add this to my bottle list.

 

EDIT: Spoke too soon. Tried it at work and no, just reek of roses for some reason. I amp vanilla, so that's weird for me.

 

A co-worker bluntly said: "it stinks!"

 

None for me.

Edited November 13, 2008 by Mousesong

[waternight]

In the imp: Jasmine is strongest, followed by rose, with a base of glowing mahogany.

Wet: Heady-rich jasmine/rose blend, with dry, spiced wood and a hint of sweet vanilla. The creaminess of the vanilla plays very interestingly with the jasmine. I think I get a whiff of the coffee too, but it's a dark, bitter coffee - black, with no cream or sugar. That mixed with the wood really dries out the blend. There's a hint of fig if I really dig for it. I must say, at this stage the blend is rather chaotic, with very different notes fighting for dominance. It it, however, incredibly name-appropriate. You've got the straight-forwardly feminine notes of jasmine and rose on top, thinly veiling a deep, complex, mysterious core.

Dry: Vanilla jasmine! The chaos has settled, and this has smoothed out into a jasmine-vanilla blend, grounded by soft mahogany. Much more coherent. It's warm, sensuous, and delicious. LOVE.

[voodoocatwoman]

Mata Hari and I are friends. I love the soft jasmine and vanilla. There is just the smallest hint of rose. This scent is lovely.

[thelaurenator]

Um, this smells like rotting jasmine. It must be the "mahogany" I'm smelling underneath that piercing Jasmine smell. And coffee. I get NO rose whatsoever.

[Seismogenic]

What a fascinating character on which to base a scent! This was another Lab frimp, and while it was one I'd stopped to look at on the website, I hadn't wishlisted it or anything because I was worried the five roses and the jasmine would stomp the vanilla, fig, tonka, mahogany, and coffee out of the picture. I'm hoping that initial worry is wrong.

 

In the imp: Jasmine, with something faintly dark and bitter underneath it.

 

Wet on skin; Jasmine and a touch of vanilla, with something faintly dark and bitter underneath it.

 

Drydown: Freshly dry, jasmine is absolutely the main thing going on here. The amorphous bitterish thing has turned more woodsy, so I'm assuming it's the mahogany. The touch of vanilla from before has disappeared, and I'm getting nothing even remotely rosy, figgy, or coffeelike. One hour later, it's still heavy emphasis on the jasmine, with a slightly woodsy base.

 

Five hours later: At the four hour mark, the jasmine seemed to suddenly drop out, leaving something vanilla-rose-woodsy, which was actually quite nice. This barely lasted, though, and everything except some dusty wood was gone by five hours.

 

End of the day: Entirely gone.

 

Overall: Sigh. Jasmine, why must you do that? What happened at the four hour mark leads me to believe there was something pretty awesome underneath all that jasmine, but I barely got to notice it, and I am not overly fond of the smell of jasmine on its own. (Jasmine tea is another story, but jasmine that hides all the coffee? Fail.) I'll be swapping this one, methinks.