Marianne

[NoinHime]

Red musk, bergamot, black currant, mimosa, orchid, patchouli, and lotus root.

Surprise love!

Normally I hate patchouli but once this one dried it left me with a sweet, musky, floral scent that I absolutely love.

I am heartbroken it's sold out. Edited September 22, 2009 by NoinHime

[tacey]

Wow, that's a lotta red musk! Sexy and intense, but overshadowing everything else, to my nose. I get hints of the black currant and a bit of the florals (not sure which -- doesn't quite smell like any them alone, so it might be the combination). No patchouli??

 

I like it, but I'd like it much better with a stronger presence from a few of the supporting notes. I'll try this one again in a couple of weeks and see if my perception changes at all.

[gingiemay]

When this bottle arrived, it had two very sharp, almost overwhelming to my nose elements: patchouli and red musk. I let it age in the hopes that it would mellow, and it did, but the red musk just completely overwhelmed the patchouli and it resulted in a very strong band-aids smell. I got no black current, mimosa or orchid, which saddened me. Swap!

[obsidienne]

When I first heard that Marianne was going to be discontinued, I rushed to order 2 bottles because I was going through a seriously mental red musk phase and I had been very curious about her.

 

When I finally got Marianne, however, I found it a weak-smelling, slightly watery red musk with a bit of floral & perhaps a hint of fruit. I was, to say the least, disappointed. It was like a watercolour painting. Fast forward to however long it has been since I got it (a few months).

 

Marianne has matured into a stunning blend. Everything in it now comes together to create a vibrant & sensual floral red musk, with a hint of those black currants giving it a fruity sparkle... but it's also very well blended, so that nothing really stands out too strongly (although red musk is always very "HAI I R TEH RED MUSKS" to my nose, I find that it's often a great note that "brings things together" to create harmony and smoothness within a scent). That watercolour is now more like an jewel-toned oil painting. It has depth, strength and richness, a bit of sweet from the orchid and lotus, and a bit of spiciness from the patchouli that makes me think of this as another relative of the recent LE, Mircalla. Purples, reds and blacks. Yum.

 

Like many others have mentioned, Marianne reminds me of a lighthearted Mme. Moriarty, but this is a lot more wearable (don't get me wrong, I LOVE Mme. Moriarty, it's just that she's so overwhelming at times!).

 

So.... wow. Go glad I put this at the back of the box for a bit. This is fantastic.

Edited November 18, 2009 by obsidienne

[beachbabealways]

I bought a bottle of this right before it went down and at first I wasn't sure about it. It was strong and sharp. I put it up and forgot about it. This evening I decided to apply a little and WOW it's nice.

 

This reminds me of Smut! Not so much Mme. Moriarty but pure de ol' SMUT.

[Venneh]

In the decant, I get a fruity-floral red musk with an undercurrent of patchouli; if the latter note can stay down far enough, this could be beautiful. On my skin, the red musk is beautiful and mixes with the patchouli to make the latter wearable, and there's a deeper fruit/floral note that I think is going to come out with a bit of wearing. We'll see where this goes. ..And of course it's the patchouli that ends up coming out. Agh. Swaps/sales.

Edited December 29, 2009 by Venneh

[starfish327]

in the imp: musky and light. it's not sweet though.

 

wet: musk and patchouli

 

dry: musk and patchouli with a hint of other notes in the background.

 

my sinuses are screaming at me today but it's nice from what i can tell, so i will probably continue to like it.

[mxtine]

This has been on my wishlist forever because of the red musk, patchouli, and lotus.

 

Marianne is mostly red musk and patchouli with some florals. The lotus root made it sweet at first, but then the florals take over and let's just say the notes aren't playing well together. I can see the comparisons to Mme. Moriarty, but she's a far superior perfume than Marianne.

[Penance]

Origin:

 

Lagniappe from mxtine.

 

Preconceived notions:

 

I haven't thought to try this one yet because there are some very iffy notes in this. I hate florals for the most part, and bergamot and black currant aren't really favorite notes of mine, either. Patchouli and red musk are made of win for me, though. Lotus root...well, I'm not sure. Lotus flowers smell like bubblegum to me and I can't stand the smell of bubblegum. I don't think I've ever smelled lotus root before. If it smelled rooty, I'd like it, but if it smelled like the flowers, I wouldn't.

 

First sniff:

 

Yummy aged red musk and patchouli. It's in the same vein as Lust v7, but they're not dupes of one another. Marianne is dark, rich and seductive smelling. She smells like a woman who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to take it. I'm not that assertive, but I do love a strong scent.

 

Wet on skin:

 

About the same as in the imp. Rich, heady, almost incense-like red musk and patchouli. There's a very light touch of orchid here, but it's faint, and so is the bergamot. They give the scent some depth, but they're not intense enough to bother me.

 

Dry down:

 

This is a beautiful scent. The drydown reminds me of Scherezade meets Lust v7. It's musky, rich with red musk, and slightly incense-like with faint, exotic florals just barely wafting around the edges. This is about the only way that I can wear florals. They have to be very faint and mixed in with strong, assertive notes that I love the smell of and that's exactly the case here.

 

The bottom line:

 

I love this. It makes me sad that it was introduced and discontinued before I could lay my hands on a bottle, although I wouldn't have bought it unsniffed, anyway, because of the florals. I'm going to be keeping an eye out for a bottle of this beauty.

[Cattastroficka]

THIS is my favorite BPAL scent of all time, and I have over 300 with another 50 on the way.

 

It's a magical blend of patchouli, musk, floral and sweetness.

When I look up the word PERFECT in the dictionary, I find BPAL's Marianne. Seriously.

So many adjectives come to mind when I smell it at ALL stages. In the vial, wet on the skin, dried for a few minutes, an hour later, 4 hours later and 12 hours later.

Seductive, sensual, strong, playful, feminine, masculine, subtle, enveloping, haunting, evoking, head turning, bewitching, sinister, angelic, velvety, smooth, heady,... I could go on and on and on and on and on and on and on.....

 

[heyjjudette]

This is my new favorite. So sexy and mysterious! I think it's the red musk I'm smelling overpowering everything else, but that's fine with me! It smells delicious.

 

This is my new nighttime scent.

[mermaidsdream]

Of all the ladies of the Grindhouse, I think Marianne is the one for whom I had the highest hopes; she embodies every note I love: red musk, bergamot, mimosa, orchid, and that non-dirty-hippy patchouli. In fact, of all the Grindhouse ladies I've tested thus far, she's the one who seems to almost completely embody the Grindhouse itself - perhaps it's the red musk & mimosa combination (as it appears in both blends).

And love her, I do, from the moment I open that tiny piece of Marianne - the red musk is foremost, with almost nothing else underneath. As I press her to my skin, I get a bit more of the orchid, with hints of the patchouli whirling about here and there. Her scent haunts my every move, intoxicating, rich, mysterious, sexy, sultry.

Alas!

Marianne! She has forsaken me! My skin has drank every last drop of her, and she has vanished after a few mere hours, without even a memory of her to keep me company. But Marianne refuses to be completely forgotten: a trace of her lingers in my clothes, and I wonder if that's where she truly belongs: nuzzled comfortably, half-alseep, betwixt the rumpled sheets of my bed.

[Blood onmy hands]

When Marianne was originally released, I got two different batch variations (one very red oil that smelled like Snake Oil with blackberry added in and hints of woodsy patchouli). Sweet, fruity, red musky. The second variation I got of this was a dark gold oil that smelled like ashy, gritty patchouli and sour (kind of body odor-y and sweaty) berries.

New Marianne is a dark oil, almost pure black with a reddish hint, and smells very similar to the GC blend Satyr. Definitely a dark, animalic, musky fragrance. I can't pick out any of the listed notes and it doesn't smell like the original variations. I would have guessed that this is civet, black musk and black wine grapes. Dark and animalistic, flat and not complex. A little sour.