Young Pine Saplings

[WidgetAlley]

Cream, clove, ginger, and honey.

 

Assuming this is the cream and honey from, say, Katrina Van Tassel and not anything from the foodier side of the family, this should be a winner on me! I love ginger and clove in all their forms, and they love me. Also, the label art makes me .

Bottle: Whoooa! Yeah, okay, I can see the buttered popcorn jelly bean comparison, but really mostly what I get out of this is a gingery, creamy-sweet baked good, like a tea bread, or maybe just strong ginger tea with milk and honey. Almost chai-like, but in a very sweet and desserty way-- chai from a coffee shop and not homemade for sure.

Wet: Mmm, I do love that fresh green ginger smell. Sweet young ginger root, not the dry or mature stuff for sure. It's followed by a strong breath of smoky clove and then a cream-and-honey backing almost exactly like Katrina van Tassel without the rose! I can see how the combo of green ginger/milk/sweet honey might smell like spoiled milk to some but to me it just smells super-foody. I would like to nom my arm please. This is a bit foodier than I usually wear as a perfume but I know I like the scent. Now, would I wear it? ... Hmm, maybe the clove and ginger will become dominant when dry, that would push this over into territory. The throw on this one is quite strong on me!

Dry: This becomes softer and closer when dry, but otherwise doesn't morph much. Sweet spicy clove, green biting ginger, and a soft honey-cream combo combine to make a very, very chai-like scent on my skin. This reminds me of a softer, foodier, less woody Clemence, and a less rosy Katrina van Tassel. I quite like it, but I'm not sure it's got enough depth or complexity that I would choose it over other scents. It could be quite nice for layering or as a calming bed-time perfume, however. It's staying with me for now, and it will have plenty of other chances to prove its worth.

I will say, though, that this one is, on my skin at least, not scary at all! If you're a person who is looking for a chai scent or likes mildly spiced foody smells, track down a bottle at once.

[Verilita]

In the imp:I can see where some people are getting buttered popcorn, but for some reason all I smelled was hazelnuts. Sugared hazelnuts with a buttery undertone.

 

wet:Hazelnuts disappear and some unknown woody smell takes its place! I can only assume the clove and ginger and taking over here. The buttery smell remains but it's much less strong.

 

Drydown: Very clove heavy, I smell like the holidays! It's also quite spicy, the buttery mellow notes are totally gone.

 

After 5 minutes:Ok this really settled down, I was worried at first! The clove and ginger have melded together into a delicious spicy mix, and the honey is finally starting to really come out and mellow down the spice. This scent really reminds me of winter and the holidays in particular. If you are a fan of spicy scents I would highly recommend this!

[ReallyZeb]

In the bottle: nutty, buttery goodness

 

Wet: I get a lovely sharp whiff of fresh ginger, almost citrus before it almost immediately starts to soften

 

Dry: This is the lovely soft ginger I've been looking for. I can see the resemblance to chai, but for me it reminds me of the gently spiced rice pudding my mother used to make. It is comforting, creamy and snuggly with just a gentle whisper of spice.

[whitsunweddings]

In the bottle: Fizzy ginger, more like ginger root that you'd put in a curry than like, the powdered ginger you'd use in baking. There's a foody 'biscuity' note in the background that I assume to be honey?

Wet: Whoa. STRONG ginger. It's like, medicinal, and it's mixing weirdly with the honey and cream.

Dry: Fizzy ginger root with spoiled cream and biscuits. I'm so bummed, 'cause I adore all the notes, but this just didn't work on me

[Ajila]

In the bottle - Candied orange blossom and almond biscuits

 

Wet on me - A hot raw ginger with a slightly soapy after scent and still biscuits in the background

 

Dry on me - A warm clean skin musk scent

 

Overall - This was just a bit of a mess on my skin, it never really settled down

[Dedee]

Wet on skin: very sweet. All I smell is cream, and is that the tiniest hint of lemon??

 

Drydown: Oh my gosh, I smell like a delicious baked cookie all warm and fresh out of the oven! That hint of lemon is still there but now the yummy ginger is making an appearance

 

A few hours later: Uh oh, that wonderful baked cookie smell has morphed into something else. The raw ginger is coming through, and on my skin it is making the whole scent go sour, and now I smell like rank baby powder. Dang it, I thought this was going to be great for me!!

 

Off to the swap pile

[ajcj213499]

This one was very odd, since for me it should be the perfect scent. What I got instead was fruit loops, like Single Note: Fruit Loops. Very strange.

[theseagrows]

daaaamn this is the cream/milk note that smells like pee on me

 

this starts out with some toasty foody note that smells like burning slightly, then i get the urine note, which i never know will happen, because i've tried some scents with "cream" and they are perfectly fine. and this sounded so lovely too, but my skin chemistry is not having this. no sirree.

Edited September 4, 2014 by theseagrows

[bellumed]

Super spicy ginger and clove, kinda sweet but IMO not pastry-like at all. Somehow spicy and smooth at the same time. Perhaps it's just the association, but to me this does smell a bit like brand new wood, sharp and young. This is such a perfectly BPALish scent, y'know? It smells great, but YPS is also just kinda weird! I don't ever expect to find a commercial perfume that smells like this. It's unusual, it's intriguing, and it's cool.

[vanilla323]

This was a strange scent. It wasn't really foodie at all. I didn't get much of the cream it was mainly a sour milk scent on me. Like spoiled milk almost. I think it was the ginger and clove mixing weirdly with with the cream. This was just odd. Maybe it was pine. It's not listed in the notes but it comes out in the scent too. This was weird. Low throw and lasted maybe 2 hours though.

[aquazoo]

I get the ginger. With the spices, cream, and sweet honey, it smells like a tasty dessert.

[LizziesLuck]

Wet: oooh, this is the same ginger note as Vespertilio Proterus. The cream note is different though, this is much more buttery, and there's something about it that almost reminds me of movie theatre popcorn, but it's not bad. Different, and interesting. I like it so far, just not entirely sure whether I would wear it or not.

 

 

Dry: Mostly that ginger note that I truly love. But there's still that hint of butter that I am not too fond of. Not sure exactly what I think of this! I don't dislike it, but I don't adore it like I thought I would, either.

[Soupy Twist]

Like a precursor to RPG Halfling. It's the same buttery pastry note, with brief flashes of ginger and clove. (And I swear there's a moment of menthol, but my kiddo also put on a pine scent at the moment I was testing. Still not sure if it was me or her I got.) Zero throw and quickly dissipates.

[Lucchesa]

I wanted Young Pine Saplings to work so badly that I almost blind-bottled this from a forum sales page. I was giving a Hokusai talk, and I was showing a slide from Young Pine Saplings, and the notes sounded gorgeous. Fortunately I was generously frimped a half decant instead. And just as in that very old joke, it Worked. So. Badly. Every once in a while (Phantom Cow, I'm looking at you), a cream note goes horribly wrong on my skin, and this was one of those times. Sweet, spicy curdled milk. But I was able to pass it on to a swap partner for whom YPS is a major comfort scent. Sigh.