The most natural or lifelike scents?

[Caltha]

I tried to search but I didn't find any similar topics so I hope I didn't start a duplicate thread! Anyway, my question is, which BPAL scents are the most natural smelling and the least perfumey? I know this is subjective but I'm just curious... It's not really a matter of which scents you like the most, it's simply a matter of which scents are the closest to natural outdoors scents to you. Even if that natural scent is something disgusting like "compost pile" I'm also curious about which scents are the most original, which scents are unlike anything commonly found in perfumes. Here's my list so far:

 

Kumiho: fresh green herbal citrusy grassy

Nosferatu: wet, cool earth with some herbs/grasses

Penny Dreadful: dry autumn leaves and earth

Amsterdam: fresh spring flowers and grasses, natural smelling but quite common in perfumes

Ulalume: compost pile

New Orleans: rottening trampled petals of heavy smelling, large waxy flowers

Zombi: earth, decay and dried roses

 

By the way I'm especially interested in knowing if you've come across any scents smelling truly like:

deciduous forest

moss

earth

mushroom

lichen

fern

bog/swamp/marsh/mire/tarn

stone

grass

rain/mist

trees (living trees rather than cut wood)

fallen leaves

jungle/rainforest

 

Yes I'm a nerd for natural scents and I can't give up trying just because the green/woody scents never work on me...

Edited April 12, 2006 by Caltha

[fiddledragon]

Eos was on me remarkably accurate spring flowers -- not perfumy floral, but like I'd just been dumped in a garden :-)

 

Burial is earth and forest.

 

Nocnitsa is deep evergreen forest.

[Belladonnastrap]

Graveyard Dirt was well...dirt.

 

Gluttony smells like a candy shoppe.

[Wench457]

Twenty One is pure juniper

The Unicorn smells just like standing under a linden tree in bloom

[storme]

Black Forest smelled to me exactly like pine needles crunching underfoot do.

Zombi smelled like a freshly-tilled rose border, very richly earthy with a waft of rose scent on top.

[blu°]

Succour. I wouldn't know to describe an environment for it, but it's by far the least perfumey BPAL I've tried so far. Very much a natural green/olive smell without being sharp, adstringent or cologney at all. Many people don't like it, I suppose because of that. But it's a gorgeous treat if you want to calm and center yourself without becoming sleepy.

The scent really reminds pine seeds, like the ones you find in Italian salad and Pesto.

 

Beth's dirt scents all smell like freshly picked mushrooms to me (Graveyard Dirt, Zombi, Penny Dreadful, etc.)

 

I found a life-like cadavre in Shroud. Or maybe that would rather be deathlike then.

 

The Premature Burial when freshly applied gave a scent of real-life potting soil, but then the orchid overpowered on my skin and took the real soil away.

 

I get sunbaked driftwood from both Gaueko and Danse Macabre. Sunbaked driftwood from the mediterranean that is.

 

Yew-Trees smelt like marijuana to my nose after drydown. More exactly it smelt like genetically engineered Dutch weed, some strong Skunk or something like that.

 

Belladonna: Woodruff syrup

[fallow deer]

The most 'natural' smelling BPAL I have tried is, I think, King of Clubs, which is definately mossy and licheny and woody. Ace of Pentacles is very good too.

[PixieSkull]

Dublin, although it made me sick, smelled like a dewy forest.

 

Ulalume smelled EXACTLY like fall leaves and damp ground. It's BEAUTIFUL in autumn.

 

Hamadryad was like apples and moss.

[Orodemniades]

Bayou smells swampy to me, and Rose Red like dark red roses.

 

Oro

[Little Bird]

Hurricane smells exactly like decaying wood, raspberry branches, and damp forest floor on me (and I love it).

 

I agree that King of Clubs is a great forest floor scent and Bayou smells just like a hot day in a swamp (and somehow I like that).

 

Snip from my review of Eden: "It reminds me of climbing trees in the summer. How you can crush a handful of plump healthy leaves and they will leave a wet sappy mark on your hands. Eden smells of that vibrant green sap." It gets a bit more foodie after a while, but the start out is all leafy greens.

 

A lot of the Rappaccini's Garden blends capture the scent of their plant namesake very well too.

 

Strangler Fig is my current obsession, it smells like the initial scent that I got from Eden, plus a woodier background. It reminds me very much of climbing trees when I was little.

 

So many BPAL scents are unlike anything else that I've smelled in a perfume before, and there are a lot of natural scents. I just can't think of any more right now, lol.

[lookingglass]

Black Opal is very much like a "stone" scent. It literally smells like a very cool rock. Quite amazing.

 

Zombi is dead on roses and dirt...very creepy.

 

Many have said O is very like p*&$y (including my DH!) That is pretty darn natural!

[blackheartedangel]

Have you tried Black Forest?

 

"This is the captured scent of a cold, moonless night, lost deep within the darkest wood. Haunting and desolate, this scent evokes images of fairy tale tragedy and half-remembered nightmares. Thick, viscous pine with ambergris, black musk, juniper and cypress."

 

Black Opal is the closest to a 'stone' scent that I have come across.

 

Nocnitsa is also a great foresty scent (and has a dirt note) like a dark, damp evergreen forest.

 

Tempest is my favorite 'rain' scent so far, but you may also like Hurricane or Lightning.

 

Bayou is very swampy, but not in a gross way.

 

that's all that is coming to mind at the moment

[zenvodunista]

i havent' tried it on my skin yet, but Destroying Angel smelled VERY dirt (with a touch of mossiness) in the imp.

 

n.

[hypatia]

Yggdrasil smells like a breeze blowing through a forest -- faint underbrush-herbiness and birch (or maybe sassafras) bark.

[northatlantic]

Dunwich was very much a realistic bog smell on me, if you can get a hold of it, it was part of the Springtime in Arkham Lovecraft LE series.

 

The Apothecary smells to me like tall grass on a humid summer day, that thick sweetness of it and almost pepperiness of the dry edges on top. A lot of the green tea scents have an outdoorsy quality to me that's more "grass" than the scents where grass is listed as a note, a lot of which go super sharp and soapy on me. maybe a thought?

[darklorelei]

For me (but probably, like, no one else), Sudha Segara smells exactly the way red clover nectar (like when you pull out the florets and suck them) tastes.

[tart]

Intrigue is a beautiful earthy scent.

[Caltha]

Thanks everybody! I have Bayou and Dunwich and I agree about the swampy quality of them, but Bayou has such a cloying floral sweetness on me it makes it a little "perfumey" and the aqatics in Dunwich were slightly schampoo-ish (like most aquatics are on me) with the added sweet cloud of lilies. I like them both but a swamp scent without the floral sweetness would be nice too...

And again, I know this is subjective and I will probably not react to the oils in the same way as you, but I'm curious about people's experiences. I don't need advice as to which scents are "supposed" to be rainy or foresty or the likes, only what they are like to you...

[foxroses]

i second Hurricane - its swampy and dark but very light and aquatic at the same time. hard to describe but amazing

[Mountaingrrl00]

Destroying Angel really does smell like mushrooms and earth on me. Graveyard Dirt is dead-on, too. Zombi and The Premature Burial also smell very lifelike, but in a different way - cultivated flowers as opposed to wild ones.

[sarada]

Yew-Trees is another really natural smelling tree smell to me. It smells just like a particular evergreen section of a forest that I frequent. It doesn't have that "piney" smell though it's more like the actualy resin from evergreen trees...a dark green scent.

 

Strangely, I find that Death on a Pale Horse smells like a clear stream bubbling over rocks and dark soil. This mgiht be subjective but this is an extremely clear experience to me and it is almost dead-on as far as I'm concerned.

[byrdie]

Graveyard Dirt was well...dirt.

Exactly like fresh-turned earth.

Zombi ~ fresh-turned earth with roses.

Penny Dreadful ~ fresh-turned earth with sweet florals.

Premature Burial ~ fresh-turned earth with spinach.

Death Cap ~ fresh-turned earth, briefly with mushrooms but ultimately with cupcakes.

[pickman's model]

Nocnitsa is about how I figure rolling around on the floor of an evergreen forest would leave me, minus the pine needles in my panties. It starts madly piney, then the dirt comes out, with a tiny speck of sweetness, that still seems natural. Almost makes me think of sap.

[zenvodunista]

i just had a sudden realization for Cathla. for the stuff that morphs a lot on your skin, but has that earth scnet you like, you should think about a scent locket.

 

i just got one and LOVE it. i'm able to wear Luperci finally, which turns to bad B/O on me (it's the cedar) but stays just warm and gorgeous in teh locket.

 

i have a tendency to make earth notes flee, which is usally OK, but if i wanted to smell like those notes, i'd have to use the locket. Destroying angel is earth for an hour on me, and then it goes to clean linen. but in the locket, i think it would stay pretty earthy.

 

good luck

 

n.

[Caltha]

Thanks for the tip! I've been thinking about a scent locket, or of putting the scents in my hair (which is short, though). I don't have a problem with the earth note though, it's true earth and it stays true, that's why it's one of my fav notes. I'd love to find some moss scents or other natural scents too for variation.... And I think I did find a nice, pure moss note in Atropa's cottage's Undomiel... Very weird, it's only florals listed in it... And that's because of my skin chemistry, it starts out floral, lily of the valley-like, and then... moss.