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GypsyRoseRed

Pumpkin I (2014)

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Pumpkin artwork by Amy Kinard!

Pumpkin cream with cardamom, black tea, allspice, and ginger milk.

I have to confess to being generally ambivalent about pumpkin, with the exception of Pumpkin King. A few of this year's Weenie's might have changed that, though, especially this one. I get pumpkin (fruit, not pie), allspice, and cardamom with a drop of tea. It's a great spicy fall scent that still stays edible smelling, without going to the generic pumpkin pie that I mostly get from pumpkin fragrances.

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This is beautiful. The cardamom is very present, giving it a delicious zing - the "ginger" in ginger milk is probably contributing, also. The pumpkin is smooth and creamy.

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Bottle: Very foodie, like rich rice pudding with cardamom and spices baked inside a pumpkin.

 

Wet: A more savory element comes out and it turns into something more like Indian rice pilaf. Maybe it's the allspice combining with the ginger and cardamom that lends a sort of curry powder note.

 

Dry: Cardamom is out in the forefront, and I start to pick up some black tea. The rest of the notes have blended together to form a subtly sweet backdrop. I think the pumpkin has backed off a little since it no longer screams FOODIE, but still has a general yuminess to it. More Indian food than chai tea still.

 

This is a really warm, spicy, foodie scent. I wanted a little more sweetness and rich creaminess, but maybe time will even out the spices to bring that out. It's not to my usual taste, but I think it will grow on me.

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This is my very first review!

 

In the bottle... Holy spices. All I smell is allspice and cardamom. It smells like opening the spice cabinet at my mom's house. That's not a bad thing. It's very dry and warm and evokes fond memories.

 

Wet, it's still mostly cardamom and allspice, but with some ginger now too. I don't actually smell any pumpkin. There might be a drop of black tea? Or maybe I'm talking myself into thinking that.

 

When it dries, it's all spices and ginger. No pumpkin. No tea.

 

This is very soft and dry smelling. To me, it smells like pumpkin spice, but not the Starbucks kind. My mom makes great pumpkin pie, and she insists that the only way to do it right is to blend your own pumpkin pie spice. Like mix up your own cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, etc. instead of using store-bought pumpkin pie spice. This smells like home-blended pumpkin pie spice! So, for me, this feels more Thanksgiving-y than Halloween-y. It's nice, but I wish I got more of the notes. On me, this is pretty one-dimensional spice.

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Wet it's very sweet and spicy, like true pumpkin pie filling. Once it dries and warms up, it's very reminiscent of Pumpkin Latte. It's creamy and sweet, with the cardamom and spices giving it that baked-goods smell. The pumpkin is warm and gentle, which is perfect for me since I don't actually like pumpkin very much.

 

This is a lovely spicy, sweet, foodie scent that is perfect for fall and winter!

Edited by Aiobhan

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I amp cinnamon, and even though there's no cinnamon listed in this blend, my skin is finding some cinnamon to amp!! (Maybe the allspice or the ginger?) It's super pumpkiny and foody in the bottle and upon initial application, like the familiar BPAL pumpkin we all know and love. The cinnamony bit emerges after about 5 minutes -- so intense that my skin burned a little. But then the cardamom and tea peek out, and it settles down into a well-rounded spicy chai tea scent with just a hint of pumpkin to soften the edges. I like it!!

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I love this in the bottle, the spices are so strong it's like gingerbread snake with a hint of warm, comforting pumpkin - so amazing, but sadly I can't make it work. On my skin the spices vanish and I'm left with rather blah pumpkin which I don't like half as much as my 2012 hay and leather Pumpkin Patch, and in my scent locket it ends up truly revolting, like strange mouldy spices that sort of turn into curry-like body odour. Bummer - straight to the sales pile :(

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Wet, this is all pumpkin. But once it dries, for the first 30 minutes or so, I don't really smell any pumpkin at all, just ginger and spice. Then the next thing you know, whoa pumpkin. It's weird. In each phase it smells quite good, but with its inability to make up its mind I think I'm satisfied with just an imp.

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Decanted by the Mellifluous. 4th BPAL Tried

 

In Bottle: Pumpkin, pumpkin everywhere it's pumpkin.

 

On wet: Spice spice spice! Not overwhelmingly so, however. It's mostly allspice, but the ginger milk tempers and moistens the spice so it isn't as heavy and dry as it was for Pumpkin IV on me. I keep catching whiffs of the black tea. The pumpkin is present, I believe, but not at the forefront.

 

Dry: Spiced, creamy pumpkin tea. For not having any obvious sweet notes, it's still sweet. I can pick out each note, and none of them overpower the others. I think I'm getting more milk than some of the other here. I was hoping for a pumpkin chai tea latte, and this is pretty close.

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I had expected, from the notes, that this would smell like pumpkin chai; instead, I get pumpkin gingerbread: the sweet, creamy pumpkin mingles with the dry note of allspice and the ginger note. I too was reminded of Gingerbread Snake. This one made me hungry!

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In The Bottle: It's like Pumpkin+Diwali

 

Wet On Skin and into Drydown: Welllllllll....I guess it turns out that pumpkin must be one of those notes that I kinda amp. This version smells mostly like a fresh-but-buttery pumpkin out front and then little traces of...maple?

 

This is pretty sad for me- I've been looking FOREVER for a good chai scent, preferable something heavy with cardamom.

 

But this isn't it. :cry2:

 

Oh, I'll test it out a few more times but honestly, I'm having better luck with the Pumpkin Spice Everything Single Note: it seems to come far closer to chai than this year's Pumpkin I on me.

 

:Biding my time:

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Pumpkin chai! Pumpkin I is another foody delight from this year's Halloweenies. I love the pumpkin here, restrained and subtle, taking a backseat to the spice. Definitely feels like the same pumpkin 'family' as PSE, but creamier and ginger-ier. The cream and ginger combo make this super comforting, like Sudha Segara drinking tea in the pumpkin patch.

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In the bottle: strong maple syrup. Much like Cockagnie but without the pancake element.

 

On the skin: The maple syrup factor, which I know isn't actually maple syrup but but more likely to be the ginger milk and cardamom mixed with the pumpkin cream, is super strong on me. Like, I barely put any on and I have this giant cloud of MAPLE SYRUP floating around me. This isn't a bad thing; at least with this it doesn't result in a migraine the way Cockagnie does for me. When I sniff my wrist, I get the black tea and pumpkin. I've been wearing it about five hours now and it's still MAPLE SYRUP but it's very pleasant. It's less spicy than Eat Me, but similar in the "warm comfort" scent way.

 

I'm glad I bought a bottle, although I don't think I'll need a backup one. It will be interesting to see how this settles over time.

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Smooth and creamy and very spicy. It's quite sweet as well. Definitely foody. When it dries it smells like I splashed a caramel macchiato on myself. It's nice, but I'm just not crazy about it. Maybe it's too strong? I feel like this is aggressively sweet and spicy and might get a bit overwhelming. Anyway I like it and I'll keep the imp around, but won't be needing a bottle.

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This feels like a perfect Yule blend for me! Sweet, glowing pumpkin, spices and the sting of hot black tea! Yum!

It's creamy and soft and slightly buttery, but not cloying.

 

I am contemplating a full bottle for the coming cold months. This will be sure to cheer me up when the weather is wintry!

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This is warm and nutty like a pumpkin curry. It's butter without being fatty and has the basmati rice steam scent I love! This is so cozy I think I finally found my BPAL foodie niche, not sugar, chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon or pastries but pumpkins apparently.

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This is my favorite Pumpkin.

Wet, it is all pumpkin spice woah but dry? Delicious ginger spice tea with a hint of pumpkin...exactly what i had hoped for. I cannot stop huffing my wrists and i will be buying a backup.

Note: bpal black tea normally goes foul licorice on me but not here!!!

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In the bottle: Mainly sweet pumpkin and spices. The pumpkin cream note reminds me of the pumpkin in Alice in the Pumpkin Patch.



Wet: Pumpkin with a lot of ginger milk and cardamom. I really hope this one doesn't end up burning my skin like Autumn Cider did! The spices seem to be getting stronger as this sits on my skin. The black tea note is present, but it is lingering in the background.



Dry: Okay, I'm getting a lot of the black tea note now. It is on the verge of turning into licorice but hasn't actually done so yet. The spices are still present, but they have calmed down significantly, and the pumpkin note is more like the pumpkin cream in the description (as opposed to just full-on pumpkin).



The tea isn't on the verge of turning into licorice now. It definitely reads as black tea to my nose.



Verdict: I was hoping this would be like a pumpkin chai latte. It's not, but it's still nice. It is creamy and comforting, and I'm glad that I have a bottle.



*edit* I ended up swapping this one. I am not sure if it's me amping the ginger milk or cardamom or what, but this would eventually end up being curry-like on me, sadly.


Edited by dementia_divine

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In the bottle: Sugary pumpkin with nutty and spicy tones. Honestly, the phrase that came to mind was "snorting a pastry."

Wet on my skin: Brown sugar, ginger, nutmeg, almost an anise base. Not what I usually get with the black tea note, but I suppose that's what's going on here? More the spices we associate with pumpkin scents than actual pumpkin smell.

Drydown: Not much pumpkin, is my sad refrain. Black spices - more like a dark gingerbread made with molasses, or a dark caramel.

I knew this one was a risk, since I'm not one for overly foodie scents, but I love all these notes, so was hoping for an outlier. It went too dreaded Yankee Candle for me overall, unfortunately. The throw was light to average, and the molasses burndown stuck around for most of the day. Really is unusually gingerbread-y for what the notes made me expect...

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Allspice? ALL SPICE is right! *slaps knee* Ahem...

Once the scary, burning spices go away, the most delicious creamy ginger milk emerges. It's light, but so, so lovely. This is one of those Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde scents that I keep around just to wait for the transformation.

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This smells like pumpkin chai tea. I get a ton of cardamom, ginger, and a creaminess to the pumpkin from the ginger milk. It's rich, spicy, and foodie in a definitive 'drink' as opposed to 'baked goods/solids'. Good throw, decent wearlength.

 

Tasty, toothsome, chai tea.

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I was sad to find that this Pumpkin's cream note is after all the one that smells excessively funky (almost strong cheesy!) to me. Then I was delighted to find that it faded away after 20 or 30 minutes! Alas, it took all the throw with it. But what remains is a soft and fuzzy, very warm and cozy, chai latte with a pumpkin biscotti kind of scent.

 

I ended up dabbing on a tiny bit of Snake Charmer Resurrected because that's my usual tactic for sharpening a scent whose cinnamon-spicy side is too faint for me.

 

It's making me very happy. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have bought a bottle. But I have it, and I'm definitely going to enjoy it.

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This was awful, chemical smell first 15 minutes,but turned to a quite pleasant spice pumpkin and finally after 30 minutes, I can also smell honeys and resins. Great!

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