The Queen of Hearts

[yeahbutnobut]

The Queen of Hearts

 

Lily of the Valley, Calla Lily, stephanotis and a drop of cherry.

 

In the imp: almond? That could be the cherry though. There's also some heady florals underneath the cherry scent.

Wet on skin: the almond/cherry vanishes, and leaves a soft white floral scent-lilies.

Dry on skin: lily of the valley! I love that scent…my mum has a patch of lilies of the valley in the garden and they always smell so nice. There's a little bit of tartness and moistness in this scent, which makes the lily seem more 'real'. The lily in here reminds me of Kostnice-it's that same raindrop covered bloom scent.

After a while: the blend is sweetening now, with a note that could be the stephanotis. I've smelt this flower for real, it has a soft, sweet scent, delicate and slightly powdery-like a muted, tempered down jasmine. I think I can smell it here now.

Verdict: this is a very nice, heady, feminine blend of white lilies. Soft and powdery, slightly moist and full bloomed, this is almost pure lily on me at first. It's very pure and fresh, like a real blooming lily, with the lily of the valley note flitting through. Then the stephanotis comes out from hiding, and adds a nice, delicate touch to the fragrance. It's a gorgeous floral scent, not sure if it's a favourite though, but it's another uber-feminine floral that I enjoyed trying out. I might keep the imp.

[Caltha]

The Queen of Hearts

 

At first I smell bitter almonds, which I guess is the cherries. There's also a sharp, soapy smell and with time it fades to a flowery soap, perhaps lily of the valley soap is the closest it gets to the description, with no hint of cherries at all. Too bad, cherries and lily of the valley would have been yummylicious.[/color]

Edited September 6, 2005 by Caltha

[OriginalWacky]

Bottle (Imp): Really sweet.

 

Just On: Sweet, and maybe citrus.

 

An hour or two later: Yeouch. Soap comes flying to the forefront.

 

Around 6 hours: Very faint soap.

 

12 hours: The last bits of soap scent.

 

Overall: Yet another beautiful scent that my skin murders.

 

After reading other reviews: I was hoping this would work, but alas, the flowers are totally wrecked by my skin.

[~AmusedMuse~]

My impression:

Clean, white floral with a hint of cherry. A very feminine scent that is both regal and refined as it should be. This says all woman, without screaming

[amrita]

Wet, I get light florals with a pretty hint of sweet cherry. I like it!

 

As soon as Queen of Hearts starts drying, I smell soap. A few minutes after application this is full-on sharp soap. I've got to wash this off-- even if it does morph (doubtful, if I know my skin chemistry), I don't want to have to go through the Supersoap phase!

[QueenFae]

A lovely, clean, white lily scent. Lilies, lilies and more lilies. It's very soft, perfumey and feminine. Not exactly what I would expect the evil Queen of Heart to smell like, but very pretty just the same. I'm honestly not sure what stephanotis smells like, so I don't know if I can detect it or not. I can't really smell any of the cherry. It's a nice one, quite girly.

[sarada]

I'm rather embarassed to be reviewing this from memory to satisfy my need to complete my Mad Tea Party reviews, but my impressions of it were clear and I don't think I'll need to test it again. I'd love to love all of the scents in this series but there's just nothing I can do about cherry and lilies -- while lilies can work in a small handful of blends for me, particularly liilies of the valley and calla lily, that drop of cherry just turned everything into an almondy cherry adventure in cloying sweetness and mild nausea for my cherry-sensitive nose. Funny, I love them as fruit. This is a perfect embodiment of the Queen of Hearts, all white and red, something that would be loved by little girls at a tea party even though it is haughty, bold and regal. Alas it's not for me!

[Blood onmy hands]

The Queen of Hearts doesn't work with me at all. She is very hateful.

 

First on this smells like cherry cough syrup and a sharp musky floral.

 

In the drydown this smells like dish soap and baby powder. Lily and I are old enemies.

 

Needless to say, this will be going to my swap pile.

[diabolique]

I got a gimp of this, and when I smelled it, I thought "This could definitely be a keeper."

 

Man, was I wrong. It smells so good in the vial, and it holds up pretty well on my skin for about 5 minutes. It's all lily and stephanotis, but then it morphs into something sickly and very soapy. It's difficult to describe. I don't get cherry at any point. It smells very old-fashioned, like something you would smell sprayed onto your grandmother's old love letters.

 

Also, this stuff is STRONG. It took me two washings to get this off of my hand.

Edited September 29, 2005 by diabolique

[carolinachiquita]

I didn't get any cherries with this scent. The flowers just didnt agree with my skin at all, it went quite perfumy on me. Oh well, I really with the cherries came out with this one on me!

[ChupaChup]

The Queen of Hearts is a very pretty floral on me. I wish I got a little bit of cherry but I can't detect any at all. This is somewhat reminiscent of Regan as far as a sweet floral goes. It's just not something I would wear very often though.

[herdivineshadow]

In the bottle, Queen of Hearts is a bit medicinal... like cherry flavour cough syrup. On my skin, it develops into a light floral scent that... somehow morphs into washing up liquid.

 

I'll probably try it again in a week or so, but while it's not an unpleasant smell, I don't really want to smell like Fairy Liquid.

[Fishwomon]

I smell the sweetness of the cherry in the bottle, but not so much on my skin. This is a very pretty, very feminine, fresh, clean floral. If you like that sort of thing, this is a good one to try. But it is far too feminine for my tastes.

[olympia301]

 

This one is a beautiful lily of the valley fragrance which starts off with a cherry note. Without the cherry I think it would just be another pretty floral, but that foody childlike start really adds the mental image which is needed here. I never would have thought that lily of the valley would combine nicely with a foody scent, but Beth proves me wrong here with Queen of Hearts. It is a delightful blend, yes I agree with those who say it is springtime, it is. Springtime, youngness, attractive and nubile, Queen of Hearts is unusual but harmonious. A real sweetie.

 

On the downside, it is a little bit old fashioned and someone else remarked, a scent that I would pinpoint as being in the department stores around 1960's and fashionable then. But that was eons ago, and I would say this sort of stephanotis and lily of the valley should return and be considered renewed. I would also say that if you are over age 25 (and that is stretching it a bit) this one would be considered juvenile for you. You don't need innocence to pull this one off, but you do need the proof of youth for it to be your scent. I would heartily recommend it for people under drinking age and as a great introduction to the world of perfume for a pre adolescent who is taking her first steps into the grown up world.

 

 

 

Though this is indeed a Mad Tea Party scent, I wanted to finish the four playing card queens I was doing with the icons. I think of this blend as being more of a playing card Queen of Hearts rather than a bellowing animalic looking Queen of Hearts from behind the looking glass.

[Cesare]

Wet: Woof! Sweet! Cherry candy.

 

Drydown: Immediately loses the candy, thank goodness, and gets mostly floral.

 

Dry: LILIES. I'm a little disappointed that this scent is so overwhelmingly white when it's, you know, the Queen of Hearts (which should be red! off with her head red!) This scent seems like it would be more appropriate for the White Queen.

 

And yet...

 

I really like this scent. It's the hint of cherry that really makes this one great, to me. The tantalizing thing about Queen of Hearts is that inhaling it, I smell almost entirely lilies, but as I exhale, I get that hint of cherry. I keep sniffing it trying to get more cherry. In fact, I think I'm going to hunt down other lab scents with more cherry and add them to my wishlist. In the meantime, I really like this scent. It's a wonderful blend.

[Chrysantza]

The Lab sent me this as a frimp in my last order.

 

In the bottle: Intensely and sweetly cherry, like cherry syrup

 

When first applied: Any moment I expect Charming Billy to ask me if I can bake a cherry pie. I'm a-slathered in Kirsch.

 

Dries down to: The stephanotis and lilies peek out, lending more sweetness, but the cherry's a pushy beeyatch. And it is another ephemeral blend, mostly disappearing after half an hour and leaving only the faintest whiff after two.

 

Conclusion: Too cherry + too fugitive = swaparoonie. With rare exceptions, I can't do florals that don't have a resin or musk in them to keep them from turning weird or going bye-bye within a half hour.

[coulrophobe]

Preconceived notions: Lilies work for me, but cherry is an iffy note - fine if it's a bright fruity cherry, but if it's the more almondy/artificial/maraschino type, suffice to say I'm not a fan. Embarrassingly - I have no clue what stephanotis smells like.

 

In the imp: Clean, crisp, soapy... nothing here says "red" to me (or "tyrant," or "off with her head" for that matter).

 

On: This stays pretty close to how it smells in the imp - clean and a little bit soapy, yet feminine. It's a bright white kind of smell to me, and I'm not detecting any cherry whatsoever. Frankly, I'm not getting much lily either - so perhaps the stephanotis is what's most prominent on my skin. All in all, it's pleasant and quite pretty, but isn't conjuring up much of the Queen of Hearts for me.

[alishathekitten]

The Queen of Hearts is very floral and feminine. It is quite "pink" smelling. I also smell a strong soapy note to it. I was expecting something completely different from this. It smells like something a young girl would wear. I wouldn't repurchase.

[brownbear]

In the vial I smell the cherry, but once it's on my skin it disappears. *pout* Then it becomes very pretty and floral. The lillies stand out a lot. It fades pretty fast on me. I wish it didn't change so much on my skin, because I really like the floral cherry blend of it.

[LyndaM]

Love it! I knew I would, I adore BPAL's lily notes in every blend I've tried containing them. The blend of lilies here is gorgeous, heady and sweet. I get a brief blast of the cherry in the beginning, but after that it's all about pure floral.

 

I ordered a bottle unsniffed, and now I wish I'd gotten a 10ml. It's very fresh, clean and pretty, just the way I like my daytime scents to be.

[LushNatty]

In the bottle: very vinegary.

Applied, the vinegar smell goes right away and there’s a fresh white rose smell—it’s very light, but nice. (Looking back at the description—I guess I am smelling lilies. Oh, well—I had pegged it as white rose at first.)

It doesn’t seem to change very much after the initial application, and it is a very light throw. It’s nice, but not “wow”, and it smells a bit soapy as lilies can do sometimes. I may use up my imp, or I may pass it on to someone else who wants to try it—I feel pretty neutral about it.

On a scale of 1 to 5: 3. (see? Neutral.)

[Elanya]

wet: Almost sneeze-inducingly flowery.... and soap

 

As it dries, the flowers (lilies, presumably) start to behave better, and become less and less soapy. It's an airy scent, but a powerful one. It's got quite a bit of throw for the teensy bit I dabbed on. I can maybe detect a hint of cherry sweetening this up, but it may just be wishful thinking.

 

I'm not really into lilies, though, and they are irritating my allergies just enough that I'm not especially inclined to keep it when I can try and swap for something more to my liking

[BlackWingedRoses]

In the bottle I definitely get the smell of cherry almond liquid hand soap.

 

In the skin that initial scent fades quickly within the first few minutes.

I'm left with a fresh clean white floral with a hint of sweet. could the cherry be disguised and lingering in the background now? While walking around the office I can smell it surrounding me without sniffing close to my wrists: decent throw. It's strong but soft, if that makes sense. I don't get any sharp floral notes. It's a very feminine scent. maybe a bit too girly for me, but pretty nonetheless. I don't wear it too often. But when I want that "just showered with a high-end perfumed soap smell" then it's a good choice.

[Shollin]

First sniff: Much like its namesake, the Queen of Hearts is LOUD! Big bright showy lilies fighting for dominance with big bright showy cherry.

 

Wearing: This just makes me laugh! I smelled the Lily vs. Cherry Smackdown from the imp and thought it would never work as something I’d want to wear, but I’m really enjoying it. The cherry quiets down pretty quickly but still maintains its fruitiness and keeps the lily from going soapy. I guess they’ve called a truce. Apparently I’m not the only one who likes it – my kittygirl just started licking my wrist.

[Wench457]

The Queen of Hearts: Cherry and light florals.

 

On: Heavier now as the Lilies bloom.

 

Dry: Started out a nice, medium heavy floral with just a hint of cherry, then quickly went to soap. Very strong soap. Like wading in liquid hand soap. Not a keeper for me, I'm afraid.