Elegba

[Kelism]

The Spirit of the Divine Messenger, the Lord of the Crossroads, He Who Owns All Doors and Roads in this World. He is the intermediary between the Orishas and mankind, and stands at the intersection of humanity and the Divine. He opens all paths of communication, both mundane and Heavenly. His ofrenda contains coconut, tobacco and sweet, sugared rum.

I NEVER would have picked this out. Coconut, tobacco, rum? No way, not my thing. I tried it on without reading the description and it was the first scent I tried that I immediately decided oOo - I like that!

I don't get the pina colada that other people get. For me I think the tobacco and rum are more in the front and the coconut is just a nice backdrop. It's kind of sweet (but not SWEET - a nice balanced sweet), kind of smokey/sort of musky scent with maybe a little buttery rum splash. It doesn't seem beachy or suntan lotion - but I can easily see wearing it at the beach and defintely it has a pirate feel to me.

This seems really unisex/masculine to me so I'm suprised it doesn't come up more when people are mentioning unisex/masculine. I like how it smells on me, but I may also try it on my husband.

[whisperingmachines]

5/5

This is a lot like Red Lantern but less complex. Smokey, warm, and sweet- really glad this worked on me.

[voodoocatwoman]

In the imp: Liquid butter, the kind they put on popcorn

 

Wet: More of same and much stronger

 

Dry: Coconut/vanilla car fragrance, mildly plastic-y.

 

Definitely not for me.

[savage_rose]

Very light for a coconut scent. Coconut layered with spiciness, it smells almost like cinnamon. A little sultry, but understatedly so. Smooth.

[Suu4LC]

This is an excellent blend. I was a little worried about the tobacco, but save for a few whiffs of some weird undertone, I really didn't notice it at all and I think it kept the blend from being sickeningly sweet.

 

I love coconut and I love rum, so I had a feeling I would like this blend. It really smells absolutely delicious. It's a great unisex scent, not too sweet, not too boozy, not too smoky, mmmm! (Though it does get a bit sugary on full drydown). This smells like something I'd want to drink at a beach bar! A great summer blend! I would like a bottle of this one day for sure (but first I have to make my way through those Tiki LES!!!)

[akuaa]

holy crap! this scent is for the win. it has something that's almost like butterscotch, but not as sharply so. (i guess it's the sugared rum.) it's soft, sweet, and totally transports me to a lazy hot-and-balmy southern afternoon. i loves it! it's probably the coconut that helps it to be so warm and soft, but when i smell it, i don't think "omg coconut!" though the note is clearly there.

[djsiberia]

wet: rum and a small bit of coconut

dry: rum and sweet - sickly sticky sweet some of the tobacco is coming out

 

i'm not sure this is for me as i'm amping up the sweetness of this a lot.

[coldandsleepy]

I often pair scents together in a sort of temporal sense. Like I think of Belle Epoque as "the morning after" Sleepy Moon. Similar concept, but gentler, more suited to every day wear.

 

Elegba smells like the morning after Red Lantern to me, which makes sense if you look at the notes. To my surprise, I get very little coconut out of Elegba, though. It's mostly a caramel/rum scent on me, with some undertones of tobacco. It's sweet, but it's not sticky sweet, and is much less in your face than Red Lantern. It lacks many of the heavier elements in Red Lantern... no opium or anything here.

 

Overall, I think it's pretty nice, and I'll probably keep it for days when I want Red Lantern but have a headache or something.

[ambersparrow]

OMG. This scent... I was dubious at first, b/c of the tobacco... but this scent is SO beautiful. Along with Tiki Queen, this is my favorite of the scents I just bought.

 

Bottle: Alcohol saturated coconut.

 

Wet: Strong and sweet coconut and rum.

 

Dry: This is where my skin starts amping the tobacco... oh, it's gorgeous and all the notes compliment each other in a way I've never experienced before.

 

Throw: Average

 

Wearlength: long!

 

This is the first BPAL scent that I completely and totally fell in LOVE LOVE LOVE with. Just absolutely gorgeous.

[brennamor]

Wow, I forgot how much I love this scent. I had ordered a 5ml two years ago, mixed it with alcohol to make a spray cologne and wore it for several months. Then I ordered new scents and got distracted from Elegba.

 

Then yesterday I found the bottle again and took a deep whiff and fell in love all over again.

 

When I sniff this scent I'm struck by the rum and coconut. I don't really smell the tobacco. When I spray it on I'm enveloped in a cloud of coconut rum. Then it dries down and takes on a bit of a caramel aroma that I adore.

 

But I have to be careful with this scent, it's fairly potent on me and it would be easy to over-do.

 

But this is definitely one of my favorites.

[veronicafranco]

in the (fr)imp and dry - huh. sugary coconut rum. i don't get any tobacco (which is ok by me). i have to say, it's cool that a perfume could smell just like something i'd enjoy drinking... but this is one i almost didn't try on, and am now sure i'd never wear. i passed it on to a friend who liked smelling the micro-drop of it i'd put on my wrist. chacun à son goût!

[Indigo78]

Let me hide behind something before going on to say that Elegba smells like Hawwaian Tropics Dark Tanning oil to me, straight from the imp...is the angry mob gone?

 

Okay, let me go on to say that on the skin it is an entirely different story.

 

For the first three minutes I'm all Coconut oil. This is a slick seduction though, as the rum creeps in to make the next twenty minutes or so increasingly heady and rich. I like this...The tobacco makes a teasing appearance that I yearn for my skin to amp, but alas. The rum and cococut have too much control, here. I was hopeful through the drydown, but it never did get as dark or developed as I hoped.

 

It is a beautiful scent, but I want more Tobacco and...er...depth? I'll age the imp awhile and see what happens, because I have the feeling Elegba may be one that needs some time.

[gchris]

In Vial: coconut

 

Wet:coconut and vanilla. Smells kind of like suntan lotion but more sophisticated. If this dries well, then I've fallen in love! As it dries I'm smelling more of the tobacco.

 

Dry: Darn, darn, darn the coconut is gone and its mostly tobacco with sugar. While I like tobacco, I was really hoping this would be a good coconut scent.

[ErinZ]

Smells like macaroons in a cigar box... which is nice, but not me.

[greenranger]

On me, wet, coconut and rum.

 

Drying, the tobacco comes forward a little bit, but, it isn't playing nice with the rum and coconut. Maybe I just don't like the three notes together? The coconut reasserts itself and comes out in front again, and I start to like it a little bit more.

 

I've seen alot of comparisons between this and Red Lantern, but, beyond both being sweet scents that also have tobacco, I don't see it. I loooove Red Lantern, but, it dries down to a caramel tobacco scent on me. Elegba is mostly sweet coconut with rum. I'm not quite certain that this is either a GC equivalent for Red Lantern(on my skin), or the coconut scent that I was looking for.

[iiinterstate]

This smells EXACTLY like Butter Rum Lifesavers!

 

It must be the rum. In a few minutes I can kind of pick up on the tobacco, but it seems dry. The coconut is there a little bit too...but mostly rum. This doesn't really work on me, I'm afraid. Too bad, but at least I have learned a bit about what my skin does with a rum note.

 

ADDED Aug. 7:

 

In the bottle this smelled so strongly of rum I was almost afraid to put it on (I don't care for strong booze in a scent).

 

At first, it was much the same on my skin, and then dried down to sweet coconut.

 

About an hour later it is a delicious blend of dry tobacco, coconut, and rum. Its similar to Perversion (one of my all time favorites) but...more sugary. More foody for sure, and with stronger throw. I REALLY like it.

 

Note: This is an aged bottle, not sure how long. But in my opinion Elegba ages beautifully and is worth hanging on to for a bit if you don't like it fresh.

[inurbanus]

I tend to associate scents that contain rum or caramel with each other, so in my mind, Elegba is categorized along with Grog, Gluttony, Red Lantern, and Upa Upa. Out of all of these, Elegba is my favorite. I think it's the inclusion of the coconut that places it above and beyond everything else -- or maybe because the rum in this is sweeter and thinner than in Grog and Upa Upa, so it's not so overwhelming? Whatever the case is, I really love this, and it's a shame that Eden usually dominates my thoughts when it comes to coconut scents, because this is so good.

 

Normally I don't care for scents with tobacco (that's starting to change, though), because it seems to dry everything out. Luckily Elegba stays nice and moist, like a party drink. It's so sweet, decadent, and irresistable -- I want to eat myself when I wear this, and that doesn't happen very often with foody things. It's very playful and laid back -- I love that this one is so easy to wear. I don't have to worry about chemistry and morphing with this one; it's good to go when I put it on.

 

My first (and luckily only so far!) leak occurred with my imp of Elegba, and I have to say, I couldn't have picked a better scent to get on everything! If you're into coconut or any of the scents I listed in my first paragraph, you must try this.

 

4.5/5

[Andrea912]

This is exactly what I was looking for when I ordered Black Pearl; Black Pearl didn't work because of the powdery musk, but this is wonderful! Creamy coconut, heavy, and sweet.

[Dark Alice]

Odd, the only thing that comes out in this is sugared rum and lotion. I love the rum, I just can't stand the lotion smell. I should know better than to continue to try coconut scents. I smell like rum flavored tropic suntan lotion. Very weird scent! So off to swaps for you too!

[galahad]

In The Bottle

Faint tobacco with a touch of rum

 

On Application

Cinnamon(!), coconut and tobacco.

 

Dry Down

This so so not what I expected. Really really spicey cinnmon and clove with a faint underpinning of coconut. WTF? I will have to come back to this and see if anything changes.

 

Rating (0-5)

1

[Pika]

This is almost all sugared rum on me. At the beginning, the tobacco is really there, and to me it really smells like gritty smoke of tobacco, rather than a floral or packed-pipe smell. This really smelled like a tropical bar floor at the beginning!

 

As it dried, it became more caramelly rum. I'll second that it smells like a less complex Red Lantern, and it also reminded me of Hellcat a little. The sad part is that I really wanted this for the sweet coconut scent I've heard people rave about. I got no coconut. Aw, skin, why can't you play along?

[Heeroluva]

In the bottle it's OMG coconut with just a hint of rum. Wet the rum comes out a bit more along with the tobacco and the coconut mellows out. It reminds me of my grandpa's flavored pipe tobacco. Dry is very similar to wet, though the scents are less individualized. A very nice scent overall.

[Iceblink]

Elegba reminds me of coconut cookies--the coconut, or maybe the tobacco blended with it, has a slightly burnt-sugar quality to it. It's very sweet and foody. Nice for hot days! (Or nights. As the case may be.)

[femmefatale]

When I first put it on it was a rather foody coconut. Uh oh. Then slightly burnt. Crap.

 

Luckily that all happened in the first 60 seconds. Then it became the sexiest suntan oil I've ever smelled. Not foody, not generic, just sexy and flirty and fun.

 

I am definitely getting bottles of this! I've been searching for a scent like this and I'm so happy to have found it.

[milo]

Mmm, this is so nice and buttery. There is something that is ruining this for me, kind of a bitter note. Must be the tobacco. Love the rum and coconut, though. I'd probably buy gallons of this if only the bitterness would just fade into the background. Will edit if it does.