Maison En Pain d’Épices

[Heavenlyrabbit]

This is the scent of a freshly assembled gingerbread house, with swirls of multicolored icing, spice drop lights, meringue snow, pinwheel mint accents, chocolate roof tiles, candy wafer pavers, and jelly candy stained glass. We used a French translation for ‘gingerbread house’ as the name to make it sound fancier. French adds +40% Fancy!

A jumble of scents reminiscent of that box of mixed Christmas cookies your grandmother used to make.

For all the candy/sugar treats mentioned, this is shockingly not that sweet.

I get chocolate , a HINT of gingerbread... and if I keep inhaling I eventually detect the barest whisper of mint and what I think is anise.

My skin is notorious for burning off sweet scents so I'll be interested to see how this works on others.

The dry down is a mix between Sugar Cookie, Gingerbread Poppet with a touch of Gelt and an indistinct Fruit note that shows up way in the background.

[TheIceMaiden]

This is yummy! It starts off gingerbread with extra spice - which I assume is the spice drops - and lots of candied fruit, which mostly smells of cherries and maybe a hint of citrus. There's a hint of chocolate and a light sweetness in the drydown. This isnt' overly sweet though, all the spices really balance them out. The throw and wear-length are moderate right now, but I suspect this will age well.

 

Très bon!!!

Edited December 13, 2011 by TheIceMaiden

[angelicruin]

So very yummy, I want to eat my wrist. I get lots of chocolate with this scent but also a lot of candy as well. The gingerbread though is light on my skin.

[Numanoid]

So, I have yet to try this on the skin, BUT sniffing it in the bottle, it is very yummy...to my nose, it smells a lot like this year's Pumpkin Latte. BUT this first sniff is sooooo goooood! Can't wait to put it on when my other scent wears off!!!

 

Ok...so I LOVE this...it does smell like Pumpkin Latte at first, but on!! Oh boy..I don't know how they do it, but there is a gingerbread smell, but not only that...it really catches old memories of childhood Christmastime...hard to explain. Funny how each of us can find something different in the same scent..this is one beautiful...Christmas in a bottle!

Edited December 11, 2011 by Numanoid

[Nepthys]

I was hoping for more gingerbread, but this smells like lemon drops and sugar cookies on me. It's sort of Sprinklecake's cousin. It's pleasant enough but fairly unremarkable.

[SadariEvenstar]

CANDY! Really this is all candy on me. It goes on with a cookie kind of smell, but that burned off rather quickly. Now my wrist smells rather like a box of Sweet Tarts and a glass of Kool Aid.

[poetria]

So delicious!!!

 

I never thought I was a fan of foodie fragrances, but lately I've been exploring them more (just BPAL's foodie scents, anyway), and Maison En Pain D'epices is truly a delight!!! I'll admit that when I sniffed it in the bottle fresh from the mailbox, it reminded me of a generic spice-fragranced holiday candle, but since it's had a little time to mellow, it is SO much more than that. And while I can definitely imagine it being a lovely room fragrance (e.g. in an oil diffuser), I think it also really works as a perfume, and I LOVE it!!! For me, this is a quintessential holiday fragrance. Anyway, onto the more informational bits...

 

I can definitely pick out the gingerbread & a hint of chocolate at the start, and then the fruits and vanilla meringue/icing come in and out during the dry down. At this point, it's like a symphony of scents, all playing in harmony - the gingerbread doesn't go away, it just serves as a backdrop. Kind of how gingerbread houses are decorated with a variety of sweets to create a colorful, yummy, edible work of art! Anyway, occasionally I get what I'm interpreting as a bit of a tea note (like what I smell sometimes in Lilith's Tea Party), but this might be the spicedrops & pinwheel mints.... And much much later, I just get a faint hint of fruitiness (when I put my nose to my wrist). It really does smell, to me, like a hint of fruit jelly candies. Oddly, even with this melange of sweets, it never becomes cloying!

 

The staying power is pretty good, and the sillage is lovely - I don't think it's a sillage-monster, but if one is standing within a foot or two or three, it's probably noticeable. I know I keep catching wafts of it every now and then when I'm moving around!

 

Speaking of sillage... I wore this perfume last night to our staff holiday party - at one point, my co-worker was standing near me and commented on how she had just smelled "something... It smells like Christmas..." Then of course she said it smelled like some kind of potpourri, but she had a look on her face that suggested the fragrance (even if she described it as "potpourri") had brought back some pleasant memories. I didn't say anything - I just figured I'd let her enjoy her moment

 

In short: yay Maison En Pain D'epices!!! Yummy!!!

[boxinghelena]

Maison En Pain D’èpices is straight up 2005 Gingerbread Poppet but not as strong. Which means, I'm getting a perfectly subtle wet dog smell on me. FAIL!

[ReallyZeb]

Wet and just on I get a bitter gingerbread overpowering everything else, which I really like. Sadly on me it dries down to something that reminds me of standing in a Christmas gift shop surrounded by varied holiday candles and the gingery smell has completely vanished

[Invidiana]

I love gingerbread blends, and this is no exception. I get a lot of classic warm and spicy (but not overwhelmingly so) gingerbread like Gingerbread Poppet, and then the combined smells of all the candy accents a gingerbread house is embellished with. I can pick out hints of chocolate, candied fruits definitely with some candied citrus in there, a tiny bit of mint in the wet stage that fades quickly, and a ribbon of sugary frosting. The most prominent notes on me are the gingerbread, chocolate and sugared fruit (especially what seems to my nose to be candied orange peel) in that order. I think this is going to get even richer and more delicious as it ages.

[Laurel the Woodfairy]

I love my bottle of Gingerbread Poppet, so I decided to try Maison En Pain d'Epices for a fresh twist on gingerbread. In the vial, I smell...jelly beans. Huh. On me, I get candied oranges in the topnotes, over gingerbread and definitely almond or marzipan. It's a "busy" scent that goes back and forth between notes, now sweet, now spicy. It's a little much; Poppet is much more stable in its yumminess. I like this but my decant is enough.

[Gateau]

This one was like a gingerbread-spiced version of Sprinklecake on me, with that same unpleasant sugary canned fruit smell. I don't know if that's the fruity candy in this or something in the Lab's frosting note, but it just didn't play nice on me. I'll stick with Gingerbread Poppet for my gingerbread perfume needs!

[coldandsleepy]

Okay. So my package of decants that went wandering (thanks USPS) finally showed up today, and I opened it with my 2 year old son who gets verrrrry excited about BPAL. He wanted to try some on, so I picked this out, thinking we'd both end up smelling like candy or cake or both. I dabbed a little on his wrist and instructed him to sniff. He sniffed.

 

"I can't smell that, Mommy." What? Sometimes he uses "I can't" to mean "I don't want to" so I asked if that's what he meant-- and he told me again that he couldn't smell it. Then, his little face scrunching up in a way that often indicates a storm is coming, he wailed, "I need mooooooore perfuuuuuuuume."

 

I dabbed a little more on him, then finally got around to dabbing some on myself. Sniffed. Huh. He's RIGHT. This is super, super faint on me, and on him too. It smells like... almost nothing. I expected it to maybe be overwhelming, but it's sort of the opposite end of the spectrum.

 

On both of us, there's a sort of breath of chocolate, a hint of molasses, and a tiny tiny touch of spice. What I can smell is nice (and smells especially good on him) but boy, it is just faiiiiiint. I'll have to try slathering this and see if I feel differently about it then...

[Iceblink]

This is pretty much Gingerbread Poppet on me too, although I do get a bit of frosting from it, so it's Frosted Gingerbread Poppet. It's nice but I finally realized GP was a little too gingery-strong on me and tended to irritate my skin. I wish I could smell all the candy notes in this! (And that this was an atmosphere spray, because it would be incredible!)

[Leopard403]

Glad to say that on me, this is chocolate with gingerbread in the background rather than the other way around. It is gentler on my skin than many of the lab's "spicier" blends, too. Love.

[tarotgirl99]

A perfect scent for breakfast out (which was today's beginning). On me, this smells like a sweet breakfast bread of some kind, possibly a cinnamon bun. It was en pointe but not a scent for me...I rarely breakfast out Like, not love...and I have too many scents I love already.

[sarandipitee]

Very much Gingerbread Poppet as others have mentioned, but with a sweet candy edge that softens the ginger spice. I actually prefer this over Poppet. I'm on the hunt for more of this one.

[Little Bird]

Testing this again, the spice is much stronger and I'm not getting any of the vanilla icing that I liked initially. I get a blast of something like spree/sweet tarts candies (fruity, tart, slightly powdery candy) with a spiciness that reminds me of potpourri. My husband really hates this (said it was buttery and gross) and asked me to wash it off...

Edited January 15, 2012 by Little Bird

[lunaticana]

this one simply did not work on me, at all

I couldn't smell anything from the description, only a vague kind a cookie-scent..

[porcelina]

the first thing i detect is sweet, sweet icing, as soon as it hits my skin. then- warm, toasty gingerbread and a wide selection of sweet, colorful candies. a hint of chocolate, a breath of mint, sugar and spice. it reminds me of last year's kingdom of sweets, but with a blast of toasty gingerbread. i agree with heavenlyrabbit- it smells like a boxed of christmas cookies and other assorted holiday baked goods!

Edited January 11, 2012 by porcelina

[milo]

Lots of spice, and what smells like candied fruit at first. I don't like candied fruit, so thankfully this fades pretty quickly, and we're left with spiced sugary gingerbread with maybe a touch of the fruit, though it doesn't bother me like the first stage. This smells spicier to me than Gingerbread Poppet, and less cookie like. This is still a great spicy blend, and perfect for the -45 with wind chill *&^))* weather we've been having. That being said, I probably wouldn't reach for this often, as I'm not a cookie/foody kind of gal, though whenever I wear these kind of blends, I get the most comments from strangers. This is sure nice though for a night like tonight!

[DahliaHayashi]

This one is such a morpher. it starts of as gingerbread, morps to sweet gum drops, cookies, candied fruits back to gingerbread, back to fruits....

I have the feeling that everytime i smell it its something else. It is a super nice christmas scent. Like other said its really like opening a box of xmas sweets. I would probably go for a bottle if i wouldnt have 1 and a half bottle of the invasion of the flesheating reindeer from uranus, which is my favorite xmas scent. If i have to choose between getting one more backup of reindeer and this one i would go for reindeer, reindeer just has more oomph to it with the slight booze. But I will keep and enjoy my imp of this one.

For me this scent stays a bit to close to the skin for my liking. The staying power on my skin is also not the best. As a snake oil fan i like a good throw

Edited January 23, 2012 by DahliaHayashi

[Gin]

I thought Maison En Pain d'Epices was a dream come true. On my skin it smells like Gingerbread Poppet + The Kingdom of Sweets. As much as I love both of those oils, I like them better individually. Maison seems like too much all smushed together.

[Incendiare]

Initially, the ginger reminds me of fresh ginger à la Mother Ginger. This is a much brighter gingerbread blend topped off with candy and sparkly happiness. Wet, the cinnamon comes out and I swear I can smell some kind of cherry candy, like jelly beans or jujubes. To my nose, there is no chocolate to be had. On the final dry down, the cinnamon pops out even more. It's an ultra cute blend packed with sugar and spice.

[thekittenkat]

In the decant: Dried out gingerbread with some candy hanging around.

 

Wet: Much like the sniff test, but with a stronger presence.

 

The dry-down: Wow, the candies really came out to play, but not in a nice way, alas. I love gingerbread. But the Lab's gingerbread note never seems to work on me, and I really want it to.

 

Two hours later: The candies became better, rather sweet and a bit spicy. Not much gingerbread at all is left. This isn't bad now, but it took too long to get there, and the lack of gingerbread makes me a bit sad.

Edited February 3, 2012 by thekittenkat