L’Essence de L’Engouement

[Melenass]

French vanilla, pink candies, strawberry sugar, and orange blossom.

 

It really smells like sweet candy strawberry and cream (both, perfume and bath oil)). Lovely.

[midnight_aeval]

I'm horribly addicted to these "sour strawberry sticks" and when I sniff this from the vial it smells EXACTLY like opening up a fresh bag of them... mmmmm When I put it on and let it sit, I get almost a burning smell... I'll blame Orange Blossom since that one always go funky on me. It's nice and sweet, but I have a lot of other sickly sweet blends I love!

[relax]

If the scent detected straight from the vial stayed on my skin unchanged, that would be heaven, because it indeed is, heavenly. However upon the application it does change, for the first 25 min or so it is a nice, strawbery candied scent with a bit of sourness. After that it becomes incensey, it reminds me of Skuld. I wish there wasn't any incense in it, but even with it, it's still interesting and can be quite LOVELY when layered with the L'Engouement bath oil-they go together very very well.

[Blood onmy hands]

This is sort of like strawberry flavored hard candy and sweet tarts candies (tart and slightly powdery), which is on the verge of being too sweet and too much for me, but the orange blossom tries to calm it down a bit. The orange blossom gives it an edge of smoky, sharp floral that cuts through some of the sweetness. I'm not sure that I would have guessed that it was orange blossom, as it has more of a perfumey, vague white floral feel on my skin.

Mostly strawberry sweet tarts with a bit of floral sharpness. Definitely on the verge of being too sweet for me, but I'll probably keep my decant of this one. I have a lot of strawberry scents that I like more than this, though (White Chocolate & Strawberry, Kitty, Hollywood Babylon, Floating Brain, Pink Lace, and Strawberry Moon prototypes.. are all more complex and not as sweet as this one is on me... so maybe I won't keep my decant, lol).

[reynardine]

This is lovely. Almost too-sweet with a touch of strawberry cream. Perfect in the bottle. A bit of pixie-stix like on the skin, but I adore it! I think it will be wonderful in the summer!

[Missy_killer]

To my nose: HELLO pinkchewysugarystrawberry goodness!

On me: Delicious pink candy! There really isn't anything else to say, it's just like I thought it would be. It's not syrupy/caramel-y, more cotton candy-ish and has a slight hint of strawberry to it. I want pink cotton candy now..

After a while: It is still very sweet, but I get this tart "sour candy" smell too, which breaks the super-sweetness and makes it very wearable for me. I am extremely happy to say that L'essence de L'engouement does not give me a migraine. Not even on those days when I feel that one is very close. It is also in my top three favorite BPALs!

Edit: I thought I had written this, but apparently I forgot, this blend has successfully become my favorite and most used oil. It's suitable on hot days and cold days, it always makes me feel pretty and I've gotten compliments on it (which rarely happens).

Edited August 27, 2014 by Missy_killer

[porcelina]

for some bizarre reason, i get pineapple from this. fresh, sweet, juicy pineapple. i think it's the weird way the orange blossom interacts with the strawberry at first but as it dries it smells more like strawberry.

 

my husband and i went to LA last weekend for a couple of different events (including will call, yay!) and one afternoon we stopped to have persian ice cream. we sampled basically everything and my husband ended up with a scoop of orange blossom and a scoop of fresh strawberry. they worked beautifully together… it tasted like this smells! it's sweet and playful and the vanilla adds a beautiful creaminess (which reminds me even more of ice cream, haha). i lovvvve it.

[milo]

YUM! I'm getting tart strawberries, somewhat candy-like, but I don't mind, because the tartness is tempering the sweet candy. I'm getting on a strawberry kick lately, and I have some favorites, (Loligoth, Kitty, and Velvet Pink Kitty). I also love the bath oil, which I'm almost out of. I'll certainly add this to my other fave strawberry decants, and get great use out of them in warmer months. I do wish I got some orange blossom out of this, but maybe that's the tartness I'm getting...

[AmyO'Shields]

I'm wearing this to bed tonight and wanted to look up notes and realized that I haven't reviewed it yet!

 

This was goood when it was first released but now? Omg. So good! Everything has melded together beautifully and I need more...

Perfumey strawberry milkshake. Om nom nom

[Lorelai1945]

This starts out on me exactly like the smell of strawberry Kool-Aid. It's incredibly sweet and overpowering in its strawberry-ness- it's very "kiddish" and not sexy or sophisticated. After drying some, though, it mellows out and becomes a bit more mature. I start to be able to detect the orange blossom and mayyybe the teeniest hint of the French vanilla, even though the strawberry is still the star of the show. I don't mind the dry-down, and it's not that I don't like the scent- it's not offensive or anything- but it doesn't feel like me. I don't think I would wear this very often. It would be great for a younger girl just starting out wearing perfumes, I think.

[cinnamonster]

Not strawberry for me but raspberry! Delicious cooked raspberries! Wonderful!

[Roogna]

sweet syrup-y fruit like canned fruit mix, turns strawberry sugary, maybe a hint of orange blossom and/or vanilla

[vanilla323]

This one was mainly strawberry and orange blossom. It was on the sweeter side though. That was probably from the pink candies. It had low throw and didn't last very long. It is a lovely feminine scent though. Something for a first date maybe. I never got any vanilla. It also became a little powdery after it was on my skin a while.

[filigree_shadow]

Super cute, pink, and fantastic. Happy and cheery.

Strawberry sugar for sure. Do you like that kind of scent? Get this. It's super awesome. So cute.

[celestia]

♔ L’Essence De Engoument

 

In the Bottle: The juice and tang of a fresh strawberry.

 

Wet: Smells like fresh strawberry, sugared – I don’t detect any cream. It smells quite similar to the Strawberry Moon blends and Kitty. It’s definitely not jammy like Strawberry Sufganiyot and most certainly not candied like Battle Fairy in Training. It’s a little floral, the blending of the sweetness from the pink lollies smells a little like sour candy from being blended with the strawberry note. It's mainly fresh AND juicy strawberries, the slight tang and sweetness reminds me of fresh strawberries with powdered sugar sifted over the top…and that taste is how I imagine this smells. The orange blossom is actually quite sharp in this and not as sweet as I am used to finding in other sugary floral-dominant blends and the French vanilla is quite subtle, only adding a little bit of creaminess – like a Campino lolly (which is funny because it mentions pink candies but I find this aspect most dominant).

 

Drydown: It picks up a bit of musk warming up, it’s still very fresh and light- almost sun-warmed. I feel like it smells more like strawberry and lemon or lime, too sharp and tangy to be orange. I think the rest of the notes are trying really hard to make me believe it’s sugared, but the strawberry itself is definitely not artificially sweetened.

 

TL;DR: Sour strawberry sugar

[ramblingrambler]

This used to be one of my very favorites, but after some skin chemistry changes, I can no longer tolerate the drydown. In the bottle and wet, it smells like sugared candies and cream—a veritable paradise of sweets! Before skin chemistry changes, the drydown became a softer version of itself with what I assume is (one of) the Lab’s candle notes (this is a different note than Lights of Men’s Lives or Flickering Lantern, for example, at least to my nose). Now, after the skin chemistry issue, it becomes a rich, buttery caramel—which sounds delish, but caramel notes have *always* made me nauseated, and this is no exception. I am so sad about this one!