Fleurette’s Purple Snails

[AmyO'Shields]

White sandalwood, orris root, wood violet, sugared violet blossom, and violet leaf.

Well hello orris root and sugared violet! Woohoo! The white sandalwood is incense-like (to me) next to the violet (sweet) and orris root (creamy)...there is a bit of bitter green from the violet leaf and it all combines to smell exactly as I had hoped from reading the notes and dreaming about a violet/iris perfume that I can actually wear! Just, yes.

[Agatha B. Android]

I love and collect powdery, candied violet scents. This one is quite special. It's dry and sweet, with an underlying sugared woodiness that enlivens the violet and brings out its playful side. This is a true joy to wear. I'm thinking about getting another bottle.

[theseagrows]

i get the sugared violet blossom and white sandalwood first. it's a woody yet sweet violet. something in this has that carmelized scent, at least at the beginning. it's very springy and sweet. the woods and orris keep it from being too sweet, but it is pretty strong and floral all the same. eventually it calms down more and becomes a beautiful candied violet that luckily isn't too sweet.

Edited May 17, 2016 by theseagrows

[Dark Alice]

This is gorgeous. Violet sugary wood. It reminds me of a very light candy heart for Valentine's day without the nasty chemical note. It's gorgeous. This will require a back up bottle.

[Kat Conover-Karpuk]

I've collected most of BPAL's violet blends, and this one is pretty lovely. The sandalwood is light, and balances well here. This reminds me of a less sweet Bruised Violet Compound. I'll definitely be picking up a backup bottle of this!

[stellamaris]

Lovely. Starts out with a very lush blast of something, which dries down to gorgeous glorious violet.

Edit : Wow, this one is really a morpher. I can't even say the changes it goes through, but they are all gorgeous. Now after a month or so my dry down is an amazing powdery violet. I really may need a back up of this one.

Sometimes I am amping a very dusty note, not sure what that is.

Edited April 7, 2016 by stellamaris

[Teaker]

Powdery violet candy. It almost has a marshmallow note. It's definitely not a natural violet flower smell, its much more on the sugary confection side of things. I like it but it'll need some aging to see how it turns out.

 

Edit: I didn't touch this for almost a year and it has aged beautifully! No more artificial grapey-candy smell. It' very soft and almost a touch powdery. I get a real similarity to La Befana, that candy note that is very warm and almost musky. It's almost a toasted sugar smell, if that makes sense? The white sandalwood and violet leaf keep this on the more natural side of things, so it isn't purely sugary. It's almost like a warm skin scent with sugared violet.

 

This will be a great replacement for La Befana (one of my favorite scents). Unfortunately it's quite light and I need to slather it to be able to smell it, and even then it has very low sillage. Still, I'm really enjoying it now and am glad that I blind-bought this last year!

Edited January 28, 2017 by Teaker

[Blood onmy hands]

I should love this, but I don't. There's a weird, bitter sweetness in this that makes me think of real maple syrup every time that I wear this blend, plus something strangely black peppery, and the white sandalwood goes to baby powder on my skin. I smell orris and violet as well, but the orris is way too powdery mixed with the sandalwood, and the violet winds up smelling cloying and strange. My husband hated this one and asked me to wash it off :/

[Laurel the Woodfairy]

Wet: violet pastilles candy! And...maple syrup? I can't imagine what is turning to maple syrup on me, but it's definitely there. Nice but kind of weird.

 

Dry: The maple is gone; it's now the nice soft violet sugar scent I hoped it would be. It fades pretty quickly on me but still leaves a pleasant faint trace.

[tailoredshirt]

Wet, this is very sweet and floral, with the orris root and candied violets coming on strong. The wood comes out more as it dries, and that's when I really like it. It's a strong, sweet, powdery floral scent, which I can be hit or miss for me, but I have a weakness for violets.

 

I tried this on last night, and when I woke up this morning it was still there, though it had turned to sweet, violet-y powder.

[LiberAmoris]

Fleurette’s Purple Snails is layered violet to the Nth. Wet, I get a moment of the maple syrup as described above, but it's fleeting (and I think it might be the orris). Dry, this is like a symphony of notes, all violet, plus white sandalwood. It manages to be both dry and candied, which is so amazing. Definitely for the violet lovers, it's practically a paean. Not as sweet as Faith on my skin, but it's close.

[Aviatrix]

Like violet candy!

It feels a little smoky, but that could also be the sugary note, perhaps?

If you love violet, you seriously need this!

[VetchVesper]

In the bottle, the violet in this reminds me of the violet candy note in La Befana, of which, I am not a fan. Luckily, on my skin, the sweetness dies down and is balanced by a greenness that makes this wearable for me.

 

This is a VERY powdery violet. Like, it should be applied with a white, fluffy puff to fluffy, white bottoms by fluffy, white cherubs who also have fluffy, white bottoms. That's the visual I get. Old fashioned and dainty and works well with the art, but not really my thing.

[patina]

This would be perfect sweet violet with a touch of greenery, but the white sandalwood is a little too dusty for my tastes, as in real, actual dust. The decant goes off to swaps.

[Haltija]

Just beautiful!

 

I am a lover of all things violet and this is a gorgeous blend to have in my collection now. Will need to wear it some more to decide if a bottle is required though. But it's candied violet with a touch of smoke/wood and a glimmer of powder from the orris. Not as sugary as my beloved Faith, but it's pretty close.

[Jilara]

This is SO different from what I was expecting! I expected something closer to Faith (which I love), and this is so much more adult and sophisticated.

 

Wet, it has an almost foody note at the ver first. I started to wonder a little, because I thought of cupcakes. But that went away, and there was an earthy slightly green note to the violet. Not like your standard violet. Very down-in-the-leafmold violet.

 

Drying, the violet leaf quality goes away, but there is still this rich, voluptuous darkness to the violet. Musky violet? Maybe.

 

That lingers for a couple hours, when sweet and sugary violets finally come out to play. Finally, I get a whiff of a little Faith-like violet. The musky quality is still a rich background note, but the top is definitely sweetly sugared violets.

 

Gorgeous and sophisticated, definitely a violet that would be great for those of us of uncertain age.

[SimplySyra]

This is a very nice powdery candied violet with a slightly woody undertone. I would heartily recommend it to fans of sugary florals, especially sugary violets. I don't personally feel the need to purchase a full size but I'm going to wear the heck out of this decant!

[Mountaingrrl00]

Goes on very orris-y and herbal. Dries down to a violet that's almost boozy in its sweetness. The candy violet scent eventually becomes soft, sweet and powdery, and lingers for hours. This is a great addition to the pantheon of BPAL violet scents!

[Upstart Crow]

I can't even with this scent! It's one of my top tens easily and maybe even top fives. I had to get it, of course, seeing as violet is my favorite note of all, and I wasn't disappointed.

 

I was a little bit worried when I put it on and got maple syrup, but it quickly morphed into a sweet, slightly sugary violet. I get a very, very light hint of anise in it oddly, which should be impossible because it's not an ingredient, but there you go. I may have purchased three bottles of it :x, which I haven't done for almost any other scent, save for a handful that are my top four!

[zankoku_zen]

Sugared violet and sandalwood. I'm not typically a violet fan, but the sugared violets in this is nothing sort of amazing. Unfortunately, they are low throw and medium wearlength on my skin.

[seida]

Eh, I was really looking forward to this scent because I love violets, but this basically does what Bread and Butterfly did - turns into strong burnt sugar. After a while I kind of get some violet from underneath, but it's not enough to save it.

 

Not sure what note it is that causes it (is it sugar from sugared violets? or something else?) but it's incredibly overpowering.

 

Will probably have to sell my bottle of this.

[Jenjin]

Blind Bottle Purchase from the Forum. Looking for a beautiful violet to wear.

IN THE BOTTLE:

Sharp herbal floral with a caramelized brown sugar sweetness that grounds it. I'm guessing this is the white sandalwood.

WET:

Strong orris root front (mashed up iris) It's reminding me of caramel chews from halloween-if they were gentle lavender....The violet is there, and it's lovely and not too sweet.

DRY:

Soft, sweetly spicy purple flowers. I'm thinking of the darkest purple violets and waxy lavender iris in a dance with a pollen float.

NOTES:

I've been hesitant to go with a violet selection before. My grandmother wore a violet perfume which was quite common in the '30s-'40s so it seems a bit old fashioned to me. I have tried a few other violet BPAL oils in the past and wasn't attracted. In the case of Purple Snails, the Iris and violet have been caramelized with the earthy sandalwood, creating a gorgeous, contemporary perfume. Maybe there is a more beautiful "light purple" fragrance in the BPAL collection that I haven't discovered yet, but I adore this one. It's an earthy floral, with good throw and feminine mystic. I'm so glad to have this amethyst treasure.

RATING:

8.5

Edited May 25, 2016 by Jenjin

[roseus]

Okay didn't think I was going to like this all that much but, surprise! In the vial it's very powdery, candy-like violet. Don't like that so much. But on my skin the sandalwood comes out to help ground the scent and it's still sweet and violet-y but not so heavy and perfumey. The violet leaf adds a nice little aquatic edge. The scent reads silver to me.

[Cali]

This seemed really promising on application; sweet, floral, soft. However now that it's dried down I'm mostly left with a strong violet, burnt sugar, and a little bit of orris. Weird. I see how people love this though, and if it goes better with someone's chemistry this would be fantastic. I'm not that lucky, unfortunately!

[Sakura Tsukikage]

I wasn't really on top of writing reviews last year, and I don't think I wrote any for the Lupercalia scents I ended up getting. However, maybe I can rectify that just a bit now! First of all, I definitely agree with the reviews above me--this is a sweet, candied violet scent that gives a sense of sugared woods underlying it and somehow manages to feel sophisticated as well as sugared and candied. I agree with the not too sweet candied violet scent description, and I also get the comparison to a candy heart. There's a definite sense of wood to this, even though the sugared violets are the dominant note. The sandalwood is recognizably sandalwood to me, if very soft, but it doesn't particularly strike me as white sandalwood, even though I can recognize the white sandalwood note BPAL uses elsewhere (and which I'm a big fan of) if I concentrate on picking it out.

 

At first, as this goes on, I don't get violets, more of a caramelized, candied sandalwood with a hint of the orris root if I think about it--I think the orris is interplaying with the sandalwood at this point to create that sense with the sugar. This changes, though, as it dries down. The violets come out, and it becomes recognizably a sweet violet scent. I also definitely get a sugary sweet note that seems to be almost cooked/crystallized, though not to the stage of caramelizing, like the coating of sugar over the candied violets. I also still get that underlying sandalwood, and to me that also feels sweetened and sugared, as if that sugar crust is coating the sandalwood as well. This is not a light or airy or elusive violet scent to me, as many violet scents can be, and it isn't a green one--it is grounded, warm, and sweet, somehow rather substantial, with the sandalwood heart and base and the rest of the scents layering the violet. As it wears, I feel like the powdery, almost creamy, orris develops more presence. It's sweet but not too sweet, soft, and very very nice. I wore this scent today because I wanted a strong violet scent (I've been on a kick for violet scents lately), and it did not disappoint me in the least. It's one of my favorite violet scents from BPAL, actually. It reminds me a bit of the Sweet Violets scent I have from Haus of Gloi in some ways, but that has a weird note on me to start as the sugar resolves into something recognizable, and this doesn't, and Fleurette's Purple Snails has far more complexity and depth and becomes sweeter and creamier as it wears.