Tomoe Gozen

[Monster]

Red currant, golden amber, blackberry, honey, and pink pepper.

In the imp this has A LOT more of a sweet berry smell than the bath oil. Yummy!

On my skin this is all peppery berries with sweet golden honey drizzled over them. There's also a fresh quality to this (that same "clean" smell I was getting from the bath oil).

This dries into an almost pure honey scent on my skin...lightly dusted with current and a base of gentle amber (which isn't going powdery on me at all).
The perfume smells beautiful mixed with the bath oil. I can see why this one is so popular

[zankoku_zen]

Whoa honey. I definitely get a big giant burst of berries on wet, and then the honey emerges. It dries down to a more honeyed amber blend with a trace of pepper.

 

Hmmm. Odd.

[Lyrical]

In vial: very fruity. Definitely redcurrant, some honey and a splash of pepper.

 

Wet on skin: mmmmmmm! The redcurrant and honey merge with some fresh blackberry. Not sure about amber, but I think that must be holding it all together. Barely any pepper - it's just a slight edge.

 

Dry on skin: the initial brightness of the berries starts to fade, leaving a golden blend of honey and amber with some underlying garden fruit freshness. After a while it is mostly honey, with a slick of golden amber and a slight sourness underneath. This is very sad! I will have to test it again.

 

Later: the curse of the BPAL honey note continues. This is very sad indeed, because I had high hopes for this scent. Maybe aging will help?

It ends up as faint but lovely amber-honey with a shadow of redcurrant behind it and is better on my skin than on my sleeve. Not giving up on this one yet!

 

Another time: this is really lovely, despite a tendency towards sourness as it dries. I think it will age well. It has surprisingly short wear length, considering how long most BPAL lasts on my skin (Sugar Skull and the Snake Oil part of anything containing Snake Oil can last 24 hours). The redcurrant and blackberry fade first, leaving a soft honey-amber skin scent.

[sofaking6]

Well I have a bit of a cold but I'm giving this a try anyway:

 

In the imp: Honey! Slightly fruity honey.

 

On wet: Very red and fizzy. I barely smell the honey, am getting tons of red currant and tart blackberries, and I guess the fizz is the pink pepper. Cool!

 

Drying: More pepper, mellow sweet red fruits.

 

Still waiting for the honey to amp up..nice!

[hlinspjalda]

In the vial: Fruity with an herbal bite.

 

Wet: Fruity and honey, with a touch of something almost tannic. It's got more depth than I expected, too.

 

Twenty minutes: Sweet! Honey with a tannic bite, perhaps from the berries. This reads a lot like the Tomoe Gozen bath oil on my skin, so I'm guessing it's the same honey note. But the amber gives it more depth.

 

One hour: Honey and amber with a tang. Definitely the same honey note as the bath oil, or, at least, it smells exactly the same. But of the two I think I prefer the bath oil although this is quite nice.

 

Two hours: This is a very lovely, sweet, warm, fruity honey-amber. But somehow I'm finding it a touch too sweet or something. I think the fruit may be giving it a slightly overripe impression on my skin; I often have trouble with blackberry and even red currant doesn't always behave on me.

 

Three and a half hours: Warm overripe honeyed fruit. It smells rather like a Middle Eastern dessert with sticky dark honey -- delicious, but so intensely honey!

 

[cometgirl21]

I have no idea where this one went wrong. Perhaps the pink pepper. I love amber, red currant, blackberry and honey. In fact, they are some of my favorite notes. But this one turned too floral for my tastes. No idea where that note came from, but definitely not from the bottle. It smells nice and fruity in the bottle. On my skin, it goes all wrong.

[pinkstardust420]

Very tart - currant is dominating this one, but the honey and golden amber seems to soften it beautifully as time wears on. Getting just a touch of blackberry...not much pepper though, which is fine by me!

[CynicalPink]

Thankfully, amber is a very minor player in this scent. It tends to go to powder on me and can tank a scent in no time. In this case, it's definitely the honey and currant show with special guest cameo by pink pepper. The currants are very sweet and the little bit of pepper that comes out on my skin keeps the scent itself from getting cloying.

 

I'm a big fan of this scent, but I have to admit that it fades faster than anything else I've got full bottles of.

[gingiemay]

This is a beautiful scent, the red current, blackberry and honey blend together to provide a gorgeous and sexy fruit/honey/musky blend. The golden amber is playing very nicely with my skin and is not turning this to powder. The pink pepper is not that noticable, but gives a very lightly spicy tinge. This is what I hoped Berry Moon would be on me!

[inkaddict]

I had such high hopes for Tomoe Gozen, but to my nose this is way too sweet.

 

At first sniff this was all tart, yummy berries, but the moment it touched my skin the honey jumped out and turned the wonderful berries into...berry bubblegum. Honey covered bubblegum.

I suspect the amber made things worse, but the usual powdery feeling I get from amber was lost in the sticky, cavity inducing sweetness. Zob.

Off to swaps.

[fisharescary]

In the bottle: I got an even balance of pink pepper and 'red fruit.' Since I've never actually smelled currents, I guess that's what it's from, or a combo of that and blackberries. Anyrate, cool! I like it.

 

On the skin, wet->15 minutes in: Same notes, but it's like there's a third one that's also part of the other two, and it's bubblegum, of all things! I swear I did not read the other reviews before trying this, so how odd. (see the review above me) Maybe after a certain amount of time it has a tendency to do that?

 

Two hours later: the initial notes are all very faded, and have also developed a faded powdery floral, maybe rose. That's not so bad, but I'm disappointed at the lack of staying power- I'll try using a bit more and see what changes.

[lainevierge]

Mmm, this has that sweet, sexy funk that honey notes always do. Unfortunately, I wish I knew for sure that red currant and blackberry are icky on my skin before getting this. I think the amber is the only think that's making it not go totally off on me. Not my favorite of the Warrior Queens.

[Venneh]

Got this as a smelly in a recent swap. I get fruit and PEPPER. I don't think I'm going to be looking for a bottle of this at all. And it's kind of good to know that I made the right decision avoiding this, thinking that the pepper wouldn't work well on me.

[veronicafranco]

when i first got this decant, it just seemed too new. like the notes hadn't melded together yet. i pulled it out today (with the bath oil as well) and like it better. honey and amber are notes i always like, berry is great if i'm in a mood for fruity scents (today is so gray it just needed a "colorful" smell somewhere), and the sweet-tart currant notes beth has been using lately are growing on me. i do wish i got pink pepper from it, which i really don't at all. i've been known to layer on a drop of aged hermia to "pep" it up.

 

also, this got a compliment from my odd coworker, who sat down next to me at lunch and said "you smell nice, did you shower?" (so i gave him crap for having commented on how i smelled like play doh one day last school year, when i was wearing haunted. because, warrior queen, right?)

[crebbsgirl]

This goes a little candy-like on my skin, and I'm blaming the red currant for that. There is definitely a sweet fruity/candy/pink vibe here. The pink pepper is pretty tame, and normally I have some trouble with that note. I like it, but it's a little too sweet for me. It seems a little girlish (and not in a wearable way for me).

[kerikeri]

This doesn't smell much like the description on me-- the fruit notes go sugary and TART, so much so that I'd almost suspect there was lemon or some other citrus fruit note here. It still has a very "pink" feel to it, though, like pink lemonade. I don't get much honey, although there is a little added richness in the background that suggests its presence, and I'm not sure what pink pepper smells like but this isn't very spicy at all on my skin.

 

It's odd-- when I sniff this scent I like it when it first hits my nose, but a few seconds later that tart candy-like note comes in and it's just too overwhelming for me. Straight-up sweet fruit scents are too girly for me and sometimes make me ill, and unfortunately I think this is one of them.

[sprocket21]

Tomoe Gozen is a bit strange on me - I'm going to blame the honey. I can definitely smell the pink pepper, but the rest of the notes combine into this sort of weird honeyed floral fruitiness. I think it would be awesome if it was just the currant, blackberry, and amber. Those were the notes I was most hoping to get, but I think I have to finally accept the fact that honey is a note of doom on me. It turns fruits and florals into just...something weird on me.

[dronzeka]

Wet, this is all HONEY and REDCURRANT!! And it's DELICIOUS.

 

As it dries down, I think there's a little more blackberry, which goes kind of muddy on me, so it's not quite as amazing as when wet. It teeters between being too sweet and being wonderful. I suspect it would be lovely in a scent locket.

 

I get only perhaps the slightest whiff of pink pepper, and I don't really get any amber (but amber's not a problem note for me - it always hides in the background).

 

This is quite nice, but on me, at least, it's very similar to Lady Una and Mad Kate, only not quite as complex. So if you have either of these, it might not be worth tracking down a bottle of Tomoe Gozen. But it is a yummy sweet honeyed-fruit scent.

[voodoocatwoman]

Spiced floral honey and amber... just incredible!!

Edited February 16, 2010 by voodoocatwoman

[bluerose]

Lovely red currents with bits of blackberries mixed together with some honey. Like the bath oil, a very clean and refreshing scent. Fortunately, the perfume oil lasts much longer than the bath oil with staying power of a few hours.

[tdiym]

this is another one where i use the bath oil as regular fragrance and like it best of the set. i tried the 5 ml oil once when i first got it, and reading the rest of the comments here, maybe i ought to try it again, but i've been wearing the bath oil all this time because i love it. on me, it's just sweet honey and currants and is a very summery-smelling fragrance for when the weather is hot and i can't wear my usual dark resins and patchoulis. i love this for its sweetness. it's a very lush and summery thing...

[filigree_shadow]

Not sure what in this is being problematic, but something definitely is. This smells like children's cough syrup on me. I think possibly pink pepper and blackberry is an unfortunate combination on my skin.

[Teaotter]

Light, sweet currant with something like shampoo in the background. Amber notes have been going to shampoo on me a lot lately, so that's probably the amber. I get no blackberry or pepper at all.

[whimsitini]

It's funny. I was really excited about getting my decants a couple of years ago and then I just set them aside.

 

It is really warm and sweet, but unless berry is the dominant note, I never get much of it. For me the red current and pink pepper hang on for dear life. It's a nice sweet but slightly spicy scent. Saving this for cooler months.

[aleciarivas]

This was an incredibly lovely scent! I think it's the pink pepper and amber keeping this from going too darn floral- but just barely! This one may require further testing later, but right now it's borderline whether I would wear it or not. I have quite a few "oh this is lovely" scents, but I'm a bigger fan of ZOMG scents.