Mouse Circus

[KatharinaNordh]

A toodle oodle of pink cotton candy noses, vanilla spun sugar fur, scattered kernels of popcorn, and a touch of polished golden wood.

I once got to try Midway thanks to a lovely forumite (the same one, in fact, who provided me with this for my birthday ) and I didn't like it (!!!) Soon as I put this on, I went "Oh, I Know this smell" - this is what I had hoped Midway would be - I really like it and will consider getting more.

That said, I realise slightly that SWEET isn't really for me (Sticky Pillowcase aside - but that doesn't actually Smell sweet on me) and so I am unsure if I will spend the money - I'll see how I feel when the imp is empty.

Edit: Ehm...hours in and something has gone Soapy?! Why?

Edit again, some days later: I will be getting a bottle. Have found myself reaching for this the first thing I do when I get home for several nights now. It deserves a purchase. I even get the pinkness now - it's soft, gray-pink and reminds me of my cuddle-blanket from when I was a kid.

Why did I even have to think twice about this one, again? Oh yeah, the soapy note. Will slather tonight and decide fully.

Edit Again: I have my bottle now - this is still a pastelly gray-pink and very comforting and soft but perky and alert anyways - a Bit too close to the skin for me, but lovely. It is actually close as a runner-up when I decide what to wear for my upcoming metal-cruise with potential meeting of former (now Terribly estranged) sex-partner (!!!)

Edit further:
There is something slightly dust'y or lint'y about this - that's what makes it so comfy

Yeah. This one is Good!

[Soniadevi]

Ooh wow! This scent is CUTE! In fact, to me it smells EXACTLY as described: mainly a sweet soft vanilla, with loads of popcorn and cotton candy. I can just imagine all the cute little mice scurrying around with their cute little noses and whiskers and hats, doing little tricks... After a little while, the wood tempers it all a little, and deepens the scent. It's a good one to have on hand when you just need sweet, warm, sticky, furry, pink, vanilla-ry, CUTENESS. Will I buy a full bottle? As yet, undecided, I'll use my decant (thank GOD this isn't LE!) and then I'm still waiting for my weenies decants, so it just depends on the overall budget. Who knows, it may just turn into one of those that I suddenly start to obsess over, or I could just get over it. We'll see.

 

PS: a good one to wear to the cinema, the theatre, or the circus. I might just have to buy a bottle after all...

 

Edited to say: Well, I have had to order a bottle, because I just can't get over how much I love this! It's a good one for the collection, besides, I haven't had the good fortune to test either Midway or Monsterbait Underpants so I have no point of comparison, but I NEED this, for when you need the ultimate pink, sweet, vanilla, foodie hit. Also: I was wondering what this reminded me of, then it came to me: it's my Vanilla Cupcake car freshener! No wonder I needed a bottle of this!

Edited September 25, 2012 by Soniadevi

[ralenth]

Bottle: Peanut buttery toffee popcorn.

 

Wet: Light, fluffy popcorn kernels with movie theater butter. Mmm...

 

Drydown: Slightly sweet, a little plasticky, but overall mostly still popcorn.

 

Dry: Vacillates between popcorn and a soft delicious sweet musk. If I could shoo away the popcorn...

 

Overall: I was really hoping for more cotton candy on my skin. I'm not a foodie, but I could totally go for some cotton candy in liquid magic BPAL form. We all have our limitations, right? Don't tell on me.

[miss_rynn]

I got into BPAL just after the original carnival scents went down, and I was always sad that I had missed out on Shill. I really, really wanted to try it.

 

This one seemed to be the closest I was going to get, so I snaffled a bottle as soon as I could. This was not a mistake! It initially smells like candy with a bitter smoke note (a bit like burned popcorn), but it soon settles down to a sweet, fairly subtle sugar vanilla. Subtle in that it's not a screaming cupcake kind of a foody scent. The vanilla in this reminds me of Lolita Lempika's "Lolita" perfume, even though the two scents are nothing alike. It's a foody vanilla with a sophisticated, cool edge. I was scared the sugar in this would turn over powering (like in Bread and Butterfly) or ashy (like a lot of sugar/vanilla scents can on my skin), but it plays nicely indeed! I think I'll still need to apply with a light hand, but this is a very nice, fluffy scent without being too sickly.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Celrynnya

[TheIceMaiden]

This scent is so very adorable. It starts off a salty-and-sweet popcorn (like kettle corn) with a hint of wood and vanilla. As it dries, I get pink cotton candy before it settles into a sugared-wood drydown.

 

This is pretty light on me, and my skin sucks it up in no time at all. So I've found that I prefer wearing it in my locket, and it pairs very well with Midway. This is one of my favourite new scents this year, and I'm very glad it's part of the General Catalog.

[angelamaria]

In bottle: pink cotton candy, vanilla, and cookies. And a hint of that popcorn too; very sweet and foody, but not entirely ~piiiiiink~ because of the wood. This is a very lovely wood note.

 

Wet on skin: the poopcorn note and wood is more prominent here, not so much the pink: just a hint of it sweetening the blend up: kind of the opposite of the bottle note actually, with the popcorn and wood dominating over the pinkness.

 

Dry: sadly, this has gone all plasticky popcorn and cream on my skin. I'm not sure where that cream-plastic came from, but cream usually means plastic on my skin.

 

Verdict: I didn't expect this to be a keeper, but it's a very lovely blend, a keeper if I wore foody blends.

[gaai]

Sniff from decant: buttery, salty popcorn...hm...

 

Wet on skin: PEANUTBUTTER... this had better calm down or I'm gonna have to wash it off...

 

Settling on skin: almost no trace of the peanutbutter...this starts to smell sugary sweet...the BF says it actually smells mousey to him

 

Dry on skin: pink cotton candy...but really soft and faint...no throw to speak of...and when I huff the spot I can catch little wafts of the peanutbutter sneaking back in.

 

I thought I might love this enough to need a bottle, but I don't....it's a fun scent, but the decant will be sufficient.

[milo]

Wet, this is Midway with the addition of salty peanuts. Dry, the similarities to Midway end (on me at least), and we're left with a buttery caramel popcorn. Don't get me wrong, it still smells like the Fair, but in a different way, like a couple of different food booths. Whereas Midway is more cotton candy and caramel apple, this is is more popcorn, peanuts and caramel. I really like Midway, but this, not so much. It is much too buttery and carbohydrate heavy, if that makes sense. I like Midway's cotton candy and caramel. A bit of a disapointment, as I was hoping to get a Midway replacement since I (regretfully) swapped away my bottle.

[Gateau]

I don't Generally love buttery foodie scents unless they have something smoky or boozy going on at e same time, but the golden wood and the promise of vanilla made me want to try this.

 

It smells like Cracker Jack! I get the sugared popcorn tpwith that touch of caramel, and something a little nutty from the woods. It's not really strikingly vanilla to my nose. I wore it to take my kids to the zoo, and it was the perfect pick for that. If I were a kindergarten teacher I'd wear it every day.

 

It only lasts a couple hours on me, which s a real downside.

[megank4]

Peanut brittle/popcorn!!! Ahh!!! Not at all what I was expecting. Guess I'll wait awhile and see if it settles down, but there was no morphing of the scent once applied.

[Monday]

Midway, you're back!

 

I get spun sugar and fluffy popcorn. There is a hint of cucumber when it's wet I think it's the peanut note masquerading. It really smells rather like cucumber instead of peanut.

It has better throw than Midway has on my skin. Mouse Circus dries down to cotton candy and popcorn the cucumber/peanut is still somewhere in the background but not very apparent.

This is one of those scents that does well on warm area's of my skin like my wrists and the hollow at the base of the throat.

[ModderRhu]

This is all popcorn all the time! Very salty buttery popcorn. Actually if I smell this further away I occasionally get wafts of watermelon. Maybe that's the pink noses. I wish the popcorn would let the other notes come out more. I prefer Elephantine Colossus for a popcorn scent because it's more balanced.

[mistressfizz]

Sniff: Popcorn! Sweet & nutty popcorn!

 

Wet: Definitely popcorn with a drizzle of vanilla pastry and roasted almonds. Creamy and thick.

 

Dry: There's more of a burnt caramel smell mixed within the popcorn. This dries very much a strong foodie scent. Interesting but not really my thing.

[yeahbutnobut]

Mouse Circus

 

In the vial: salted peanuts and popcorn with a sweet undertone…it smells like peanut brittle!

Wet on skin: salty peanuts and a bit more vanilla.

Dry on skin: this does smell like treats from the fair or circus-caramelised peanuts, popcorn, candyfloss and other sweets…the peanut note seems to fade a little, and the popcorn becomes more prominent. This isn’t buttery popcorn like Shill (thankfully-I found the buttery note in there overwhelming) but it’s definitely salty! The candyfloss/spun sugar notes are gorgeous-a bit sweeter and pinker than Midway, and lacking the ‘deep fried sweet treats’ note in that scent. The vanilla is similar though. The wood seems to ground the scent.

After a while: the peanut and popcorn fade away to leave behind the loveliest scent of vanilla and spun sugar with a bit of sandalwood at the base. The best part? It smells almost identical to Underpants on me! I think the sugar is a bit whiter/pinker than the golden Underpants sugar, but the vanilla-wood combination is almost identical. It also reminds me of the 13 from October 2006. There’s a tiny bit of nutty richness, like the caramelised nuts in CD023, but the full-on peanut scent is gone. I think it smells more like pecans (like Copulating Mice, strangely enough!) than peanuts by now.

Verdict: this is such a fun scent! It fits that particular scene in the story perfectly. I smell pleasantly salted popcorn and nuts and candyfloss, and also a less gourmand furry vanilla-wood base that strengthens and remains once the candyfloss and popcorn are consumed. The scent is almost midway (heh!) between Midway and Monster Bait Underpants, with a bit more nuttiness thrown in. One to add to the bottle list!

Is it a keeper? definitely the decant. Will probably get bottle once I finish the decant.

If you like this, try: Midway, Monster Bait Underpants, 13 (Oct 06 version), CD023, The Snack Hut, Silver Haired Bat, Elephantine Colossus

[ScabbyLucy]

First sniff- Peanuts! Salty, fresh peanuts! A great switch from the lab's usually sugar heavy foodie scents. Along the way I get bits of popcorn, wood and occasionally cotton candy, but the peanuts stay front and center.

[BuxomM]

salty roasted peanuts. I think the wood and popcorn is mixing to smell like peanuts. As it dries it gets buttery. Surprisingly, it's not cloying. The throw is about a foot away. After an hour it smells more like popcorn and after another hour there's a light sweetness with a hint of popcorn. The throw fades quickly.

Edited April 24, 2013 by BuxomM

[Leopard403]

For the first few moments this is horribly salty on my skin, that hot boiled peanut smell I sometimes get from cheap cream notes. *shudder* But then it becomes identifiable as salted popcorn and peanuts. Pretty uncanny, really, and quite evocative. I don't get any pink notes. Not my favorite blend but it is an interesting one!

[FriedaLove]

I'm undecided on this one as I'm very sad that I didn't immediately love it. I read that this was similar to Midway and I wanted Midway because a few people in the review said it reminded them of Disney World

 

In the vial: For some reason, this smells just like caramel apples, even though that isn't listed as a note

 

Wet on skin: Buttery popcorn, almost burnt

 

Dry down: This turns into vanilla and then morphs into plastic I asked DH to smell it and he said it reminds him of a doctor's office. Not what I was going for I was hoping for the cotton candy to come out at this point.

 

Dry on skin: This bounces between vanilla and plastic (staying mostly at plastic) but eventually settles into a smooth vanilla. Unfortunately, this only occurs when it's to the point that I have to press my nose against my wrist to smell anything.

 

This didn't last very long on me. After 3 hours I couldn't smell a thing. I reapplied the same day to reevaluate and got the same scent notes but it lasted a little longer, I guess because I didn't wash it off before reapplying. All in all, I'm a little disappointed. I really want to love this because I want something to ease my "homesickness" for Disney World, but I'm just not loving it because of that very long plastic note. I'll try it again another day and hopefully it'll be better.

[zewtsuit]

This is the first scent ever that I'll be 'liveblogging' the scent of. All the other ones, I've had some preconcieved notions about, an I was just so desperate to try this scent, being a huge fan of Coraline, that I had to try it the second it came in the post.

 

In the bottle: Oh wow. A lovely, candy popcorn smell. Very sweet. Smells like a fairground- but in a strange way, not the fairgrounds you get in the summer where you've got the smell of warm grass and heat in there- this is quite a cold candy smell. I can definitely picture this scent being in an attic.

 

Wet on skin: Slightly less popcorny, but the sweets are amping up like mad here. I love it! Smells like a cinema.

 

Dry: Something sweet and vanilla-y. Oh no, it's going waxy! Still wearable, but I'm raging at my skin chemistry. Not much throw. Still, delicious and despite the fact that it doesnt work brilliantly well on me... Well. I'm still going to wear it.

[Poenari]

Was gifted a sniffy of this with just enough to test. It's all salty buttery popcorn and peanuts. At first, it was very heavy on the salt, but that dries down quickly. The butter also smooths and blends in to the overall scent, so it didn't make me turn up my nose the way Jack's buttery smell did the first time I tested Jack. This scent is one that I find interesting, but would never feel compelled to actually wear it, and also doesn't appeal to me enough to consider as a room scent. Very glad I got to test it, though, as I had been curious about it.

[lohengrin]

In the decant: COTTON CANDY, HOLY CRAP. Nothing else, just cotton candy.

 

On skin, wet: Still very strongly cotton candy, but warmed up by a lovely sweet vanilla. Hints of popcorn--or maybe wood, it's too faint to be sure--are peeking out, which worries me, though.

 

On skin, dry: The popcorn-maybe-wood note never gets any stronger. The vanilla is about neck-and-neck with the cotton candy now.

 

After an hour: Much the same as the initial drydown, though it seems to alternate between vanilla and cotton candy rather than blend them, somehow. I have to say, getting a decant of this was an afterthought, but this is an absolute stand-out scent. I MUST have a bottle!

[Acayde]

Bottle: Peanut butter...oh, I think i'm going to like this....

 

Wet: Melted salted peanut butter drizzled over caramel popcorn (drool) with a hint of varnished wood (this part is a little off-putting)

 

Dry: This has no change at all, it is still melted peanut butter drizzled over caramel popcorn and the throws match. Only when I smash my nose to my skin (which I do because it smells wonderful!) do I get that varnish smell. Definitely a keeper!

[peacocks]

In the bottle this is a pretty even blend of polished wood, peanuts, and popcorn. Maybe a touch of vanilla, but no cotton candy so far.

 

Dry: Nutty cotton candy, sort of. It's more of a sweet, nutty vanilla to my nose, but boyfriend says cotton candy and "something else." It's more powdery dry, which I think is the polished wood. I like that it's not achingly sweet or buttery, but I was hoping for something a little pinker, and maybe a little less foody. I also recognize a bit of that burnt vanilla sugar smell from Boo, but it's tempered by the wood.

 

This one's a little confusing to me. I've been trying to figure out how I feel about it since I picked it up 6 months ago... it has grown on me, but not sure if I love it.

[MiasmaResonance]

In the bottle it smells a lot like Midway, but on me it's all slightly sweet popcorn all the time. Popcorn overload, kind of makes me queasy.

[Circaea]

On me, Mouse Circus smelled exactly like Boo, layered with some kind of dry, woody patchouli note. Wish I could have got Midway from it, or cotton candy, or even popcorn. Well, you win some, you lose some.