Mad Hatter

[Victory]

A gentlemen's lavender-citron cologne unhinged by the feral pungence of black musk and a paroxysm of pennyroyal.

I admit I was quite concerned when I tried this imp out. Pennyroyal? Man, that's the stuff we put on my dogs to scare off lice and other boogly-wooglies. Black musk? I'm just finally admitting I like any musks, and those are pale. So I was surprised that once the blast of pennyroyal wore off I smelled like.... an old lady, as my mother bluntly told me. Maybe the Mad Hatter is really Queen Elizabeth II?

[QueenFae]

A very sharp scent indeed. To me, it's very minty fresh. A green, spirited mint note dominates, although I know there is no mint in the description. There is definitely a lemony note as well, and it floats right above the distinct lavendar undertones. This is definitely very masculine, and my husband stole this imp from me months ago. I absolutely love it on him, very sexy.

[billaguru]

I must admit, I dunno neroli from a canoli, so most of my reviews will be more expressionistic description than a detailed lowdown on notes'n'such. Besides, one of my major fascinations with BPAL product is how the scent expresses the idea or character it's based on. And in this case, Beth and crew really nailed it.

 

The scent smacked me upside the snout the second I popped the cap on the imp. Something wild-eyed and manic, yet possessing a frayed gentility. First you get a faceful of crazy, all quicksilver mints and scorched felt...then the tweaker takes his butterknife away from your throat and invites you to tea and cakes.

 

Neat, but a bit fey for me, so I swapped it to my evil enabler for some imps of Coyote and Hellfire.

[juniperus]

Bottle: citrus and lavender, very soft.

Wet: the same, with a green note creeping up from behind.

Dry: the green note is present, but not sharp the way pennyroyal has been known to get on my skin.

Later: very nice. this is gentle, but, alas, it's also fading quickly. It may belong to Mr. C, I'll check with him once he's out of the tub (but he rarely says no to new smellies!)

[LiberAmoris]

Oooh, minty! Mad Hatter is not as feral as I thought it might be, I actually find it to be rather refined. There is that bottom layer of black musk, but the lavender/citron/pennyroyal keeps the blend in an almost herbal place, so that freshness offsets the musk quite nicely.

 

Another imp for my boyfriend's box. I'll be holding onto this one until next summer (or the way the world climate has changed, perhaps next week) as the mintiness would be really refreshing in hot weather.

[supremegoddessofall]

Definitely a men's cologne. I get the lavender, citrus, and musk all equally. The overall effect is almost anise-like. This has a rough and ready feel to it.

[PilotKitten]

Hrm... this *almost* reminds me of Jabberwocky but EXTREMELY more toned down. It's an interesting sweet blend. I never would've pegged it for masculine if the description and name hadn't said so. I can catch a very faint hint of lavender... in the right amount of strength I've come to expect from florals in a gentlemen's scent... which means, not much of it there. Interesting... perhaps I'll have the husband try this one out and see if I like it on him. He can't smell anything so who cares if HE likes it or not? Lol.

[Laurel the Woodfairy]

I have no idea what pennyroyal smells like, but it's supposed to be good for headaches so I'm curious about it. It smells...or at least something in here smells...of fresh mint. Pleasant, clean, but a touch medicinal--rather like some mint tea that I have. The musk appears on the drydown. I don't think it actually has headache-relief properties for me. Oh well, worth a try!

Edited November 9, 2006 by Laurel the Woodfairy

[zankoku_zen]

In the imp: lavender and slightly minty.

 

On Skin: Lavender and mint! Glee! (I bet the minty smell comes from the pennyroyal).

 

On Drydown: *POOF* Gone. Boooooooooo.

 

Verdict: It was nice while it lasted. I will edit this later with what I get from the boy. But on me, my skin chemistry drinks it all in... and leaves me with nothing. Nothing.

 

ETA: The boy smells like an "Andes Mint". Tasty. He isn't so into the bottle love... but he definitely enjoys the smell. Although now he's hungry for chocolate...

Edited December 28, 2006 by zankoku_zen

[Brianne]

In the vial:

Super sharp pennyroyal

 

On me:

At first, this goes on so sharp and odd that it is nauseating to me. Quite literally, I felt ill at first (I had a similar reaction to some other blend with pennyroyal, so it may just be that note I have a reaction to). Luckily, it settles and becomes something quite different - definitely makes me think of cologne - it's got a citrus and lavender backing that is fairly drowned by the sweet and dark muskiness. It's there, you can definitely smell it but I wouldn't call this a citrus OR a floral.

 

It's rather sweet but I would definitely say this is masculine

 

Final note:

I know many women who love masculine scents, so if that sounds like you - give this a shot. It's too masculine for me, and makes me think of aftershave but at the same time it's pleasant enough. Slightly sweet, and with an odd backing of sort of but not quite citrus and sharp lavender.

[Meg]

In the bottle: Lavender and pennyroyal. I'd never sniffed pennyroyal before, but the violent sharp mint note must be it. Oof!

 

Wet: Pennyroyal and a strangely sweet black musk. Very jarring blend.

 

Drydown: Lavender attempts a brief appearance, but under that pennyroyal it's struggling. It becomes weirdly rubbery all of a sudden, I don't know what this is but I usually attribute it to oakmoss, though it's not in the ingredients. Once pennyroyal finally gives up and leaves, I'm left with very powerful rubbery oakmoss, which I guess is a component of the cologne.

 

Overall: A crazy blend! The pennyroyal is really obnoxious and smells obssessive, and the rubbery musks and oakmoss are completely unhinged, indeed. It makes me sneeze, it irritates me and it's completely psychotic. It also reminds me a lot of Black Annis, it's somber like this. Not me, but I totally appreciate Beth's effort to portray the Mad Hatter.

[baranoouji]

In the bottle: whoa! Minty! That must be the pennyroyal.

 

Wet: Unsweetened mint, in fact, it has a quasi-medicinal aspect. This is the sort of mintiness that you find in BenGay or those Tiger Balm things.

 

Dry: Still that bitter mint smell.

 

Overall, the smell is very Mad Hatter-y, but also more of the Crazy Grandma.

[bombus]

I do not like this one at all! I think I am objecting to the combination of pennyroyal and citrus. It is turning very sour on me.

[hecate_jones]

I love this one, but I like it better on my husband than me.

This one's definitely a favourite of his... he bought two bottles!

The pennyroyal's a lovely mild mint smell, and the lavender and

musk seem to sweeten/deepen it nicely. It's a very *clean* sort

of scent. I don't get much citrus from it, though.

[Medici]

In the imp: Lavender and all those great somnolent herbs that make me drowsy.

 

Wet: Sit and drink pennyroyal teaaaaaaa... slightly minty, very fresh, and gender defiant? Wow. Wasn't expecting that.

 

Drydown: The lavender takes a backseat to the minty quality of the pennyroyal, it's fresh, green, and slightly herby. After about five minutes I begin to see where others have mentioned that this might be better suited to a guy - a very refined sort of guy. On me, it's going powdery.

 

It might fare better in a locket, so I will hold on to my imp.

 

Nicely done.

 

3/5 on Medici's Scale o' Lurve

[rockchickie]

On my fiance...

 

Wet: Rather minty. Like a Vick's Vapo-rub or something? Medicinal.

Dry: His skin just amps up the lavender. Where's the musk? His comments: "Too flowery." "I smell like a girl."

 

Away it goes...

[dorothy humbird]

In the imp, I can smell the mint hovering over the other notes. For some reason my expectation of this scent is "foody" -- I think because I keep getting it confused with March Hare.

 

On my skin, the pennyroyal's sharp mintiness is the most noticeable facet of the blend, but it's layered over a warmer base -- probably the musk grounding things. Oh man... something about this (I'm guessing the lavender) actually reminds me of the boy I'm seeing right now. Uh oh. [This will mean me going to sleep with my nose glued to my wrist tonight.]

 

Oddly enough I do get a bit of an edible vibe from this blend on my skin... not just the edibleness of mint and lavender, but there's a warmer bit that seems like I could eat it. Maybe this is just because I have spent such a good amount of time biting the boy's neck at this point that I've created a connection between his cologne and things that go in my mouth.

 

While this is in early drydown the pennyroyal's minty edge keeps the blend fresh, although the black musk has quite a warmth to it underneath. As it's drying the mintiness has mellowed out...

 

Wow. This is very, very nice... I would definitely be making plans to test it on the lad if he didn't already smell almost exactly like this (and he refuses to tell me what he wears, the bastard!) ....at the same time, I can see this scent being unisex - or at least easy to get away with wearing if you're a lady and you tend to like masculine scents. It's just sweet-lavender enough to keep it from being wholly masculine.

[batsy]

In the vial: whoa, lemony pennyroyal.

 

On the skin: ugh burning smell. It's the black musk and pennyroyal that are killing me. Definite swap!

[eternalargus]

This is one of favorite blends, but I wanted to get a full bottle before doing a review...

 

 

Bottle: Fresh mint tea.

 

 

On Skin: I'm smelling a little bit of lavender, but not too much, which is great because I usually associate lavender with household cleaners. The mint-tea scent is staying true and strong, with a slight touch of sugar. Not smelling the musk yet.

 

 

Dry: Smells like fresh mint tea on me complete with a couple of lumps of sugar. There is just the barest whisper of musk in background.

 

 

I like to use this one in the car's diffuser because it helps with driving-stress headaches. I think I read somewhere that mint helps the driver to stay more aware...I don't know whether that's true or not but Mad Hatter helps me a lot.

Edited April 24, 2007 by eternalargus

[Castrensis]

In the imp: Holy pennyroyal! I don't get any of the mint that others have described, I think pennyroyal shares the sparkling quality of mint but smells markedly different. I'm slightly worried because the lilac-citron in Whitechapel went all wonky on me resulting in a scent reminiscent of the big mints they toss in urinals.

 

Wet: Pennyroyal, pennyroyal, pennyroyal.

 

Dry: Oooh...I like this. The notes have blended splendidly, all four are detectable but none takes precedence over the other. This scent succeeds in being simultaneously soft/creamy & pungent/penetrating.

 

One hour of maturation: The scent changed not at all & hasn't provoked a reaction from my skin. I'll repeat that: No rash. None. Nada. I BPAL.

 

Me Judice: *tears off his shirt, throws it to the side, happily slathers his torso & leans back to enjoy the AMAZING smell of Mad Hatter* I am sooo happy I have a bottle of this coming.

[hipslike___cinderella]

I opened up this imp and oooo! Refreshing, minty lavender! Very astringent, very cologne-like. It's barely hard to tell in this stage if there's any musk. But the minute I try in on my boyfriend's arm- oh hey there black musk! This is... sexy! I'm a huge fan of lavender intertwining with dark notes (hello, Gaueko) and this does not fail. The black musk swells into a heavily herbaceous, camphorous scent (I'm assuming it's the pennyroyal that smells "minty"; it's not IDENTICAL to mint, but I have no other words to describe it). At the middle stages, this has an undertone of moldy cellar... er, I mean that in the best way possible. Like a musty basement with shelved lined with home-grown herbs. I like that. I'll admit, my mind seemed to pass over "black musk" with the description, and with "lavender-citron cologne", I expected something crisper and more citrus-like (yeah, I didn't read reviews either). I'm more than happy with this, and glad to add more proof to my theory that black musk is the deliciously best note on my boyfriend

[Jheya]

In the imp: Cool, gentle citrus over a deeper musky herbal base.

 

On skin: Cool, and almost minty. It's also musty, herbal and slightly soapy on me.

 

As this dries, the minty note vanishes, though an edge coolness remains. What's left is musty and cloying, like being somewhere where the damp is causing things to rot. I'm not liking this one at all.

 

About an hour after applying it's faint, powdery, cool and herbal. It's a strange scent, and one I'm not terribly keen on, so I don't think I'll be keeping my imp of this.

[readiness]

in imp/wet: peppermint, lovely wonderful peppermint.

 

drydown: the mint is still there but with something darker/stronger on - almost chocolaty. (maybe the vanilla)

 

I think this is going to the swap pile or maybe to the maybes...

[PurpleHeather]

In the bottle: A sharp, menthol clear mint.

 

Wet: Halfway between menthol and citrus, and a minute or two later, a background of musk. Very fresh, clear scent. Evokes memories of watching rock being made at Ryde on holiday as a child, and of my Nanny for some reason, though this really isn't a feminine scent at all on me.

 

Later: Love. The mint is still clear, but the musk is coming through with a deep background headiness, with a slight bit of lavender. Bottle list, I think.

[Vampy]

When I first put this on there's a sharp citrus-splashed tea scent - the pennyroyal, I think. As it dries I start smelling the lavender and the musk. It's an odd clash of heaviness and airiness, the thick musk and the high-pitched herbals. Pleasant, but very odd.

 

Over time the musk gradually blooms until it's actually a little overly strong for my tastes - some musks do that on me. It stops just short of headache-inducing, but I'll have to be sparing with this one.

 

The oddest thing, though. After about 15 minutes I went and took a nap, and when I woke up, it smelled like...... Sweet sugary cake? Yeah, a powdered-sugar dusted, rich, sweet cake, combined with dark musk. This hatter is pretty mad, all right.

 

Many people said it was very masculine, but to me it came off as very gender neutral.

Edited December 30, 2007 by Shollin