O

[achildoftime]

The scent of sexual obsession, slavery to sensual pleasure, and the undercurrent of innocence defiled utterly. Amber and honey with a touch of vanilla.

 

Vanilla and I are not particularly good friends. We tolerate each other if there are enough notes to create a buffer, but with just three notes there is no hope of peace. All I get is an overly sweet vanilla due in part to the honey, and part to my chemistry. But I really just smell like the over-perfumed vanilla candles they sell at home goods stores. It's a shame, too, because honey works so well for me and when it breaks through, it's beautiful.

[h_yeti]

Wow, out of all the BPALs I've tried, O has definitely transformed the most with ageing. Fresh, it smelled pretty much like play dough with like this really weird hint of bodily fluids... I put it down to the honey just not working on my skin AT ALL and I've been avoiding honey blends ever since. Then last night I decided to try it again just to see if anything had changed and oh my goodness, it's so good! Wet it smells like actual, real honey. Dry, I get a really beautiful sweet lightly vanilla-ed honey, over a base of slightly powdery amber. Stayed very close to my skin but when I woke up could still smell it, so it did last a long time. Will absolutely have to get into trying more honey blends now, the honey scent in this is so good.

[Cali]

Ok so I'm not a honey fan, but this bears a lot of resemblance to me in memory of a strawberry honey I got to taste at a bee farm in New Zealand once.

If you love honey, you'll love this. I'm mostly getting honey with a touch of amber and the vanilla adds that tinge of extra creamy sweetness.

[garbagewitch]

First try: powder, and then just warm skin. Not even sexy warm skin, just. Skin.

 

Second try: I decided that since I already don't really like it, there's no point in being sparing with it. Slathered my wrist in O, with a good three dips of the wand, and that certainly seems to make a difference!

 

The scent is recognizably honey now, though it still has that soft dryness to it--a bit like raw, crystallized honey, almost. There's also a distinctly floral tinge to it, not enough to make me think of actual flowers, but just enough to remind me of where honey comes from. It actually makes me think of a few lines from Hadestown: "the smell of the flowers she held in her hand, and the pollen that fell from her fingertips... and suddenly Hades was only a man, with the taste of nectar upon his lips." (Which actually really makes me wanna try this layered with Persephone...)

 

There's still definitely nothing sexual going on here; if I was gonna pick out a mood, it would actually be a bit closer to sad? Even strangely wistful? Not innocence defiled so much as it is innocence with a painful awareness that its ending is inevitable, maybe even soon. Like that hazy part of late childhood / early teens, when you know your days of being carefree are limited. It's Alice's sister sitting on the bank, thinking of how Alice will have to grow up some day, or Ada drizzling honey on her bread in the morning light, as she watches Van walk away from her. It's skin sticky with honey and warm from the sunlight, and long, loose hair, dusted with pollen from rambling through the garden--sweet, a little playful, but ephemeral.

 

It fades down to (again) just warm skin. And again, not sexy, just pleasantly warm, like a loving hug from a small child. Not what I want to smell like, but I think it'll be nice for writing certain scenes / characters.

Edited June 19, 2018 by conflagrantThief

[SoundlessEchoes]

Of course I had to try this one... it's supposed to be super-sexy, and well, while I found the end of Story of O rather sad, I won't say the subject matter wasn't intriguing!

 

Imped: What comes out to me when I sniff it is honey, vanilla, and big BAM of voluptous sexiness, like Jayne Mansfield turned into a perfume, blonde and faux innocent and taking your breath away.

 

Worn: This one comes off my skin in clouds, all honey and vanilla and a faint hint of amber. It's more sweet than sexy worn, though... I guess it's still trying to obey the Hays Code on me! It's a very feminine, sensual fragrance, but it seems more of an innocent tease than the aftermath of sex that some seem to get.

 

Long term: And I do mean LONG term - I could still smell traces of soft honey and faint vanilla on the back of my wrists over 24 hours after first application. This is not a scent that fades and disappears! Luckily, it's a very pleasant one, growing a hair less overwhelmingly sweet, but still staying more flirtatious than sexy. To me, this is very much an ingenue's scent, at least as it wears on me.

 

Overall, while I don't think I need a bottle, I'm pretty happy to have it, and I'm curious to see how my swain feels about it, since it seems popular. When I get a chance!