Highwayman

[iriedanym]

Stand and deliver! Vetiver with gardenia, blood red rose, night-blooming jasmine, a dash of cinnamon and a faint hint of leather.

I got a frimp of Highwayman from the Lab today.

First smell: Dear gods, what the hell is that smell? The vetiver is overpowering, and I couldn't smell the other notes at all. My nose was crinkling.

I ended up getting some of the oil on my index finger, and then on the top of my cat's head because she has decided that she loved all BPAL. Once it started to dry down, I could smell the rose and leather. It's not the same smell as Whip (which I do like). This is definitely a masculine scent, very roguish.

Verdict: It's starting to give me a headache. I'm going to hand the imp off to someone who might love it more than I ever will.

[Amaranthus]

I received this as a free sample with my most recent order.

 

The first time I wore this:

 

In the bottle it smelled like vetiver, but on my skin it turned into a well balanced blend of rose and gardenia, with a hint of jasmine. Sweet florals!

 

The scent of leather prevented it from becoming too sweet, the way florals sometimes do on my skin.

 

The second time:

 

The vetiver stayed throughout the wear of the perfume, with the leather behind it, and the florals in the background. Still nice, but more traditionally masculine.

 

This is a unisex blend. It smells good on me, but I think I would like it even better on a guy.

[jrk1857]

Ack! I smell like a dirty ashtray. I have known vetiver that I liked, but this is not it. It's starting to settle a bit, and I can sense other, more pleasant, things in the background, but that first 15 minutes almost made me ill. Into the swap pile!

[jamethiel]

In the bottle: Vetiver. A lot of vetiver. And a little bit of tobacco.

 

Wet: Vetiver. Rose warming through it.

 

About 10 minutes in: Wow. Rose is smoking a pipe and bought clubs and gardenia is armed with leather belts. They're having a fight on my skin.

 

This has some incredible throw and lasts on my skin. These are big, thuggish florals that aren't afraid to be tough. It's definitely a red rose.

 

20 minutes in: Huh. Gardenia is winning. Slight vetiver underneath.

 

an hour in: Gardenia still winning. Can smell the vetiver.

 

Two hours. Rose seems to be getting the edge.

 

3 hours: Still lasting. Still strong. Rose is winning, but I can smell the leather underneath and a little vetiver.

 

This is GORGEOUS. A definite bottle for me.

[Leopard403]

Yep, vetiver.

 

Which mutes everything else.

[changeling]

In the bottle: A sweet and smoky smell

Wet: A tangy rose-and-leather combination.

Dry: A rich, floral blend with deep leather and smoky notes that keep the florals from being too sweet. While rich, Highwayman does not have a strong throw. I only dabbed on the oil, and full potency lasted a couple of hours. After that, it grows more "powdery", but the main notes are still distinguishable.

[DeltaCat]

Gak! Very strong leather and vetiver! Whomever said perm solution was dead on. Wow...not for me...

[SophieCedar]

I can see if I turned my nose off that this would smell like perm solution.

However the on switch is working so it picks up vetivert, leather, and gardenia. Strange and unique.

[surf-tormented]

Smells like what would happen if you mixed De Sade and Djinn together. I didn't get much floral in this and once it sank into my skin after 15 minutes or so, I got a very odd plastic meets perm solution smell. It did leave eventually and now I have a full bodied smokey leather scent.

 

I like it. I am not sure if I would buy a bottle of it, but the imp is pretty awesome. One of the better leather scents BPAL has!

[impolight]

:::HIGHWAYMAN:::

 

From the Imp, Highwayman initially gives off the impression of a man living off of the land and what little else that opportunity will afford him. Highwayman smells as though there is Amber, Cedar, Patchouli, Violets, and possibly Vetivert in it...

Between Bluebeard and Saturnalia, it has become evident that Violets and Vetivert are a winning combination regardless of the proportions...

Highwayman is coarse, grizzled, flinty-eyed and contrabass...

Highwayman smells of underbrush, hide-away, and boot-leather.

On the skin, the Vetiver in Highwayman blooms the most, and Sage and Lavender seems to come to the surface.

Highwayman is, whoah...Sexy. This is the kind of sexy that does not muck about; that will provide you with an unceremonious hiding and then absentmindedly reach for a glass of water.

Highwayman is rolling hills, painted rock, and thunderclap.

Highwayman is gritty solitude.

Effectively authorative fragrance for him.

5/5...

 

P.S.

 

After going back to the notes the realization that there were no notes of Violet, Amber, Cedar, Patchouli or Sage...

Aren't first impressions funny?

[voorishsign]

Was frimped this, always wanted to try it on account of loving cinnamon and vetiver! Let's hope the florals and cinnamon don't get too much in the way . . .

 

In the imp - vetiver. And how. Oh dear me, I love this already.

 

On wet - vetiver, vetiver, and more vetiver. I am loving this.

 

Drydown - Vetiver amped into the heavens, and I love it. It reminds me a lot of my favourite vetiver/leather scent, Iago. Highwayman's leather is a little too faint for my tastes so I'll mostly still stick to Iago, but as far as straight-up vetiver goes, this is amazing.

[angelicruin]

Vetiver, vetiver, and VETIVER. This one goes to the frimp pile.

[rachelandrade7]

I was frimped this by the lab, and while I'm eternally grateful for it I must concur with a few other posters...

 

The vetiver smells like a dirty ashtray! However, I've learned through reading the forums never to let an oil go to the swap pile until you've at least tried it first, and I'm a little glad I did. Key phrase: a little.

 

The ashtray scent is overwhelming, but if you sniff a little past that you get an almost black pepper thing going on. That in itself kept me from scrubbing my arm down in hot water. After about an hour this sweet, smoky, tobacco/leather, man scent emerged. I'm seriously considering dousing the hubs in it. Then it went away. As in totally gone. An hour of stale cigarette smell for that?

 

IMO, the violent vetiver assault on my nostrils was not worth the final result, however nice it (fleetingly) was.

[Seismogenic]

I was gifted this one by a friend, and I'm not entirely sure what to make of the notes just yet. That is to say, I'm wary of the florals, but hopeful that the other notes might temper them. However, I'm a little concerned that vetiver being listed as the first note means it's the only thing I'll smell. Time to test and find out!

 

In the imp: Predominantly vetiver, though perhaps a little sweeter and drier than usual.

 

Wet on skin: Still almost entirely vetiver, with the slightest floral edge.

 

Drydown: Freshly dry, there's still a heck of a lot of vetiver, but the florals are coming through more clearly. It's the rose in particular, but there's a whiter floral edge as well. I'm not picking up any cinnamon, but it's not impossible that leather is part of why this is a little drier than vetiver usually is. At one hour in, it's vetiver with a little bit of rose and jasmine, now backed up more clearly by leather. None of the other notes come close to taking over from the vetiver, though.

 

Five hours later: Still plenty of vetiver! The leather's about as prominent as the vetiver by this point, though. There are still subtle hints of flowers, but nothing overt.

 

End of the day: Hint of vetiver.

 

Overall: I think this combination of notes works very well for the poem that inspired the scent. The dirty vetiver and worn leather mixed with flowers definitely makes sense for the sort of roguish outlaw romanticism here. That said, I don't particularly like how this scent works on me. The vetiver is just a bit too overpowering, but at the same time, I don't particularly want to smell like jasmine or gardenia, either. I appreciate this one on principle, but I think I'll be swapping it.

[ami226]

I couldn't bring myself to skin test this one. Vetiver just smells like ashtray to me. Earthy ashtray.

[hmelt004]

I ordered this for the name despite all the notes of death. It's all vetiver and jasmine to me, creating a weird sort of dirty sweetness. This is definitely a guy who with take advantage of you. And he's going off to my PIF pile.

[Dharklady]

In bottle: Hmm, vetiver takes the lead followed by florals…this doesn’t smell promising…

Wet: So I put this one and pretty much washed it off immediately. I have recently discovered jasmine and I don’t get along and with that, the rose, and the vetiver popping it with those notes was highly unpleasant.

Dry: Fortunately it didn’t have much time to set, it was tolerable once the majority was washed off…

Notes: Not so much for me.

 

[tailoredshirt]

I think this ranks up there with one of the worst scent experiences I've ever had!

 

It started off strangely fruity and chemical. I can only imagine that the fruit smell came from one of the flowers, because this has happened to me before. But under that sickly-sweet fruity smell, I got something strange and chemical-earthy. I couldn't identify it until it suddenly hit me: NEW CAR SMELL. With a fruit-scented air freshener. >.< Then the new car smell started smelling like a new car that has been newly cleaned with heavy-duty chemical cleaners. Like shampooed rug. I...I am at a loss as to what on earth could have caused this reaction, since I'm a big fan of leather blends. I guess it's the vetiver. Oh, well. :/

Edited June 14, 2010 by tailoredshirt

[starfish327]

i didn't realize that this has rose, or i put on my wishlist before i knew that rose and i are sworn enemies. but i love vetiver and leather, so i'll give it a shot.

 

in the imp: vetiver and...something. i'm guessing the rose. but the vetiver is much stronger (though i normally detect it in much higher amounts when it's in a blend, so that's not saying much).

 

wet: vetiver blast, then it backs down and becomes smoky rose. i can live with this- it's st. john's eve without the incense.

 

dry: oh no. it's going sort of smoky plastic- though what i'm registering as plastic is actually the leather note, and it's actually a nice leather note. i'm just used to smelling it in blends where it's not this dominant on my skin. it's actually a fairly simple blend on me once it dries, and i actually wish i got more of the cinnamon or the rose just to balance out the leather and vetiver.

 

i'm going to keep the imp for layering purposes but i'm not sure that i'm going to seek another one out when it's gone either. i like leather and vetiver but it's not complex enough to wear on its own.

[CitizenBree]

Strong leather with vetiver. Vetiver usually makes me cringe my nose and curl up in a ball, but the leather tempers it just slightly enough that I don't HATE this scent, but it still doesn't do it for me. Underneath I can get some of those florals, but it's mostly leather.

[mxtine]

I couldn't bring myself to skin test this one. Vetiver just smells like ashtray to me. Earthy ashtray.

Same. I smelled leather and rose but vetiver, you always ruin things.

[Lydialove]

From reading the notes I absolutely knew, without a doubt, that I would love Highwayman - possibly on me and certainly on my husband.

 

I could not have been more wrong.

 

There's something about that exact combination of leather, vetiver and cinnamon that smelled very smokey.... not perfume vetiver smokey, which I love, but like stale cigarette smoke.

 

My husband and I are both ex-smokers so this smell is... not what we want in a perfume

 

Really, it's a relief to have at least one BPAL not be something I want more of.

[zmulls]

As one of the rare "I love vetiver" members (and one of the rarer male ones), this was something I was anxious to try. When I reviewed my list of favorite scents, many of them have a touch of the evil "V" in them. But I've developed my own internal scale.

 

Iago, Czernobog: Lovely amount of vetiver, makes me feel and smell good all over

 

Malediction: A striking amount of vetiver, bordering on too much, but balanced out by other ingredients.

 

A Countenance Forboding Evil: OMG. That is just TOO MUCH VETIVER!!!!

 

So I was a little worried that Vetiver being the primary component of Highwayman, I would be too far up the scale.

 

And at first sniff, I thought I was in trouble. That's certainly the first thing that hits you, and hits you *hard*. But I gave it time

 

In several minutes, the other ingredients came out and mellowed and balanced the vetiver. Became a good strong scent but one with some sweet floral and leather dancing around it. Really nice.

 

This one goes on my top ten list, and one of the only scents I will be hankering for a bottle of...

[calivianya]

I received this as a frimp from the Lab, and decided to skin test it in spite of the many death notes.

 

Wet: I get vetiver and lots of things that don't work on me: rose, gardenia, cinnamon. The gardenia/cinnamon combination is particularly nauseating, and gives me the same slightly nauseous feeling I get in the pit of my stomach from smelling Sacred Whore of Babylon.

 

...This isn't getting a chance to dry down; I'm washing it off.

[JLH]

I ordered this in my first order of imps because I was interested in trying something with a leather note, and because I am generally a fan of vetiver. The idea of combining those notes with florals and cinnamon intrigued me.

 

When I opened the imp I was actually worried, because "Danger Will Robinson!" That's a lot of vetiver! Once on my skin, the vetiver quickly became less overpowering, but still quite strong. The leather is also present. As it dries, the vetiver is starting to play nice with the other notes, but I'm still only getting the florals and cinnamon closer to my skin. The vetiver and leather give this a somewhat strong throw.

 

As much as I love androgynous and even masculine scents, this is definitely a man's blend. Or should I say, a MAN'S man's blend! Even though it does have florals, this should be worn by a man who likes his scotch neat, who gets his suits custom tailored, who knows how to shoot a gun, win a game of chess, and who speaks five different languages. Basically, James Bond probably smells like this. Swoon!