The Hesperides

[Brianne]

The Hesperides are the Nymphs of the Evening who dwell in a verdant garden located in the Arcadian Mountains, guarded by the terrible three-headed dragon, Ladon. Within their garden lives the tree that bears Hera’s sacred Golden Apples. Their perfume is that of sturdy oak bark, dew-kissed leaves, twilight mist and crisp apple.

My first review! And also my very first BPAL scent!

In the bottle:
Woah. Fermented smelling. Dizzying - it makes me a bit light headed. Not necessarily in a bad way. Definitely sweet, but a fruity floral kind of sweet, not a candy kind of sweet.

On me:
Definitely making me think of cider. It has kind of a whoozy, boozy fruity thing going on, and I mean that as a compliment. There's a bit of a bite deep down in the scent - but mostly I'm getting this floral cider-y smell.
(I should note that at very first, when this scent is still wet, I get much more of a green scent to it then I do after it drys. It's actually kind of an odd smell, and it reminds me of something that I can't quite put my finger on...)

Final call:
I like this. I'm not sure I'd wear this on a daily basis, but it's a really curious scent in my opinion (which makes it good!). It definitely makes me feel like I'm drinking cold cider though. Although, the longer it's on me it starts to smell a bit more floral than fruity.




EDIT: I figured out what best this describes this scent for me - a wine cooler. It smells alcoholic and dizzying, with a slight touch of fizziness and fruitiness. Edited November 3, 2005 by Shollin

[Phaedra]

This is fruity- pear, strawberry, melon? Oh- it's apple! This is also a bit woody and great for spring. These are pale yellow apples. This is very nice- light, fruity and feminine. I think I might need to get a bottle of this at some point. I also am drawn to anything having to do with ancient Greece. Luckily this one works one me (unlike Delphi which didn't).

[requieminblack]

First sniff from the bottle- Bitter apple cider

 

After 15 minutes- This smells like fermented apples. It kind of also smells like beer to me. It's sweet and appley but bitter like a can of stale beer.

 

After 30 minutes- I'm not getting any of the yummy candy apple out of this as others did. I do detect a hint of floral creeping out of it as it dries, but it is still bitter apple beer for the most part.

 

Summery- This stayed true to it's apple base note for a long time and faded to a soft sweet milky floral on me. I liked the fade out of this one, but I don't care for the boozy initial stage.

[aurianrose]

Really apple and woodsy. So good! I did get a boozy sort of smell initially, but that died down really quickly to that fabulous apple smell. This is a great scent! (I'm such an apple fan too...)

[quikslvr]

Early fall. Bright apple, oak. Breezy northern islands. Becomes more woody as it dries, becoming almost masculine. Sticks well. Work ok for me, which means it'll probably be used quite a bit.

[girlmadasbirds]

i wish i got the cider-y, woodsy smell people have been talking about, but i didn't! this is a very light apple on me and kind of reminds me of an apple air freshener i smelled somewhere.

 

i gave it another shot and got crisp apples with something of a caramel-ish hint... now this i like!

i tried it a few days later with the same result. guess what just joined my 'i want a 5mL' list?

Edited June 23, 2005 by angel sixgun

[voodoobaby]

In the bottle: Oh. my. goodness. Somehow Beth always manages to make her fruit scents complex, deep, and kind of dark. This is no exception. It's not dark, per se, just incredibly deep and strong. I think it might be the wood giving it the depth. I want to drink this!

 

Wearing: Ah, very nice. Smells just like an apple, sliced into quarters, when you lean over and take a big whiff of the soft, white, juicy flesh inside. This is the kind of apple that comes from an actual non-commercial orchard--neither red nor golden, but streaked with the two colors. I can smell a very, very faint whiff of a white floral, along with the wood and some greenery. Mmm.

 

Later: OK, now this is weird. I can actually smell the dew and mist. It gives off a kind of aquatic scent, but not a salty aquatic a la Bayou or Tempest. This is the smell of fresh water, or the smell of the air on a chilly, moist night--yet at the same time, it evokes the smell of late summer perfectly. The main note is still apple, but the mist smell is remarkable. Beth, how do you do it?

 

Overall: Very, very impressive. There's something inspiring about this blend. I think I like the smell in the bottle a little better than actually wearing it, but...man, this is beautiful. A definite keeper.

Edited May 11, 2005 by voodoobaby

[joseybird]

This is an exquisite golden apple scent!

 

It's a young woman sitting in the shade of a tree on a bright, breezy day, eating a sliced Golden apple dusted with brown sugar as the leaves of the tree brush by her cheek.

 

It's that lovely

[slave1]

In Bottle: Apple and wood.

 

On Skin: The apple is so clear, I can almost taste and feel myself biting into the peel. The bark and leaves make you feel like you just picked the apple off the tree. It smells of outdoors and the fall, so pretty. I wouldn’t wear this as a body scent, but it would be beautiful as a room spray.

[babykitty]

[Sistinas]

a review of The Hesperides

 

Vial ~ Wow apples!!! All I did was uncap the vial and scent of apples

wafted to my nose, strong and hard. Are there other notes in this scent?

Ah, after I bring the vial to my nose I pick up the oak and something else,

that I am not sure of.

 

Wet ~ Hmm, where did that apple scent go? I think I can pick it up, and

what I am reminded of is fresh apple cider.

 

Drying ~ Smelling the scent on my wrist gives me the same impression that

I had when it was wet. An oak barrel with fresh cold apple cider with no

spice to it whatsoever. While I am not a fan of Eve, kind of thought it was

just so so, I am still a bit reserved on this one. I don't see me falling

in love with it.

 

Dry ~ Yes, this one is on the lower end of the spectrum for me. It has

dried and practically has no scent on my skin. While I don't mind slathering

especially since I have to do it with alot scents that I do like. I just

don't have the love for this one. I find it odd that the apple scent that

had wafted so strongly from the vial earlier has disappeared.

 

Fade ~ An hour after application, I have a very light scent of the oak,

no apple that I can smell.

 

Final thoughts ~ I know I was dissing this scent earlier, but maybe I was

being too haste. I am not sure if I would buy a 5 ml of this, but I think I

will give it another try with a huge slathering of it and see how I

feel about it then. At the moment, I would give it a 2 out of 5.

Edited October 20, 2005 by Sistinas

[fathom]

It is a pretty scent. A very pink and girly scent. It smells like candy to me, with a hint of jasmine. And apple.

I think I was hoping for more oakbark in this scent when I ordered the imp... Though really, I think this does seem like a good approximation of the garden the Hesperides might live in. Golden apples, indeed, with a profusion of light blossoms in the background.

[anmorata]

Hesperides:

Wet, in the imp: I've smelled this somewhere before. Closing my eyes, I'm taken back to my elementary school days.. perhaps I smelled something similar on a scratch n' sniff sticker. That's what it reminds me of, somehow.

Wet: Yep, I'm still maintaining that it smells like a scratch n' sniff sticker a la 1985.

Drydown: The smell finally mellowed out and became more apple-like, not all too unlike the way Prague smells on me.

Longterm wear: this strong scent faded to absolutely nothing after about 2 hours. Sad.

[Gin]

After reading the reviews, I knew I had to get this. When I applied it, I was surprised at how different it was from what I expected. Instead of honey-caramel-chocolate apples, I got bark-covered apples. As it dried, though, the bark fell away and I got sweet apples. No honey or caramel or even a crisp apple scent, just a soft, sweet apple.

[Cagedflame]

the hesperides : in the imp, apple, soap, flowers. on my skin wet, oh my god, this delicious warm autumnal slightly spiced ripe apple scent with almost a hint of caramel or something. not a tart granny smith or a slightly pear like golden, no... a very ripe red apple, or apple cider. please oh please let it stay like this!

i ran upstairs and stuck my wrist under mom's nose and made her smell it. she wrinkled her noise and said potpourri? sniff, sniff. oh no, a slightly potpourri ish note IS coming up. back! back! go away! still definitely warm apple, though. i'll wait 5 minutes and sniff again. uh oh... more potpourri. ;_;

oh! wait! i think the potpourri smell is fading away again! yessss! it must have just been a drydown thing. i can live with that. i like this, a lot. it's apples and something else, something "outdoors." the wood perhaps? definitely like an apple orchard.

i'm going to try layering this with inferno to amp up the faint spice. seems to be working nicely, but i'll have to see what happens when the cinnamon starts to calm down a little and the orange blossom rises some.

edit : well, i've waited. the combo is delish. i can't stop sniffing my wrist.

 

i was actually expecting to get this, find out it wasn't like the description at all, and crinkle my nose and swap it away. i was fully expecting to hate it after smelling it in the vial, but i can't believe how much i like this one! it's not even what i pictured as a me-scent... i only bought it because i once used an apple-y scented red candle for a lust charm that worked really well. but i really like it after that potpourri phase ends.

 

edit again.

timeline of potpourriness fade :

 

0826 hesperides on

0829 starting to pick up potpourri

0831 yeah, def. some potporri

0835 potpourri toning down a little

0839 still kinda potpourri-y

0841 dying down

Edited May 29, 2005 by Cagedflame

[wickedgoddess]

Origin - imp received in a swap

 

Hmm..both in the bottle and wet, this is not what I was expecting. To me, it smells more of candied apples than the real thing. As it dries I get a delicious woody scent, the oak bark, and finally some ozoney twilight mist.

 

I was hoping this would be a catalog substitute for my beloved Mabon, but it's a different kind of apple entirely. The oak bark almost makes it worth buying, but not quite.

 

On the wickedgoddess scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being best, this rates a 3.

[iliadawry]

Bottle: Apples, apples, apples; all is perfect pink lady apples just ripe on the tongue, sweet and crisp and autumnal.

 

Wet: Apples still predominate, but florals and what I'm guessing are mists come into play as well. This scent remains light, though, after a few seconds of almost cloying appley sweetness from the bottle.

 

Dry: the florals linger, but are never richened by the oakwood -- sad, I like oakwood!

 

I like this one but am not sure I'd wear it often.

 

/ili

[Aredhel]

Rating (on skin): 2/5

Summarised in a word or two: Sour apples!

 

In the imp/bottle: Leafy, tart green apples.

 

On skin, wet: Spicy, bitter green apple. Loving this one so far.

 

On skin, dry: This reminds me of candles, of autumn, and of the apple trees I once had in my back yard. But mostly candles. A spiced green apple candle, exceptionally tart and juicy. It does remind me of Jolly Rancher candies. Unfortunately, as it continues on, it becomes increasingly tart, and then sour.

 

Conclusion: I loved it while wet, but not so much when it goes sour.

Edited July 11, 2006 by Aredhel

[sh1mm3r]

In the bottle and wet: I smell a lot of wood, and I am immediately skeptical.

 

Drying: Wow, super apple! I echo many who have already reviewed in saying I didn't expect liking apple. I stay away from apple-flavored or apple-scented candles or body products (too country home for me) but this is so real, I do like it. Particularly in its honey/caramel stage.

 

Dry: Still very apply, like picking apples on a late summer afternoon. Also cycles back through the caramel apple stage, and I am immediately transported to a friend's annual Halloween party as a child, where we would bob for apples and have a hay castle.

 

I want to keep this one around for fall. I love it when I put off trying imps because I think I won't like them and then I do!

[Ms Density]

Out of the vial, the scent reminds me of Strongbow—that almost effervescent alcoholic sniff of freshly tapped cider—offered to me on the front porch of a woodsy-smelling cabin where some caramel apples are being dipped nearby, and maybe a bowl of candy corn sitting out. The wood and the caramel are making out in the background, and the alcoholic apple scent is very crisp on top. On the inside of my forearm, the apple stays true and the scent of fermenting leaves asserts itself, merging with the caramel and the oak while the alcohol note dissipates.

 

I really like this—it reminds me of an awesome Faun Fables song fittingly titled “Apple Trees.” Beautiful autumn twilight, and the full moon spying on a tryst in the apple orchard.

 

Layered with Hellfire, it becomes the fragrant cigarette your lover smokes with you afterward.

[bigeyedgirl]

This is a masterpeice.

 

Wet...apples, plain strong apples, nut not red ones, the gold ones.

 

Durring the dry down the wood peeps out but it's still a crist clean golden delicious apple.

 

I love this. I will wear it over and over as my clean scent. It really is beautiful.

[arabella]

First Impression: Wood and sparkling apple cider.

 

Dries down to: A nice, light apple scent, without being really "fruity". I can't really pick up any other notes. Apple isn't high on my list of favourite scents, but to my surprise, I really do like this one. It would be nice to wear during Indian summer.

 

Lasted: About 3 hours.

 

Rating: 4 out of 5

[slugbait]

The Hesperides – In the imp it smells of just pressed apple cider. It doesn't smell boozy to me.

 

My sister and I tried this one at the same time. Immediately on my skin it smells like fresh cut golden delicious apples with a slight oak note . It turned into caramel apples on her. It was not overly sweet or fruity. It has a clean and airy feel to it. I love how this oil varies from person to person. My sister has decided this is how she wants to smell on her fall wedding next year.

 

My only complaint is that it doesn’t last very long, 2 hours tops. I don’t mind reapplying, just means I will need to get some more.

 

I will be ordering two 10 ml bottles of this – one for me and one for my sister.

[paperdoll]

Initial Sniff: Apple pie. How very patriotic for this 3rd of July.

 

Wearing: This starts out as crisp, tart, juicy apples. It fades to something sweeter and just a bit floral.

 

Final Impressions: This is what nice clean Hobbit girls smell like. Oh yes it is. But I am not a hobbit.

[vyvyan]

On me, this went on like someone poured sweetened commercial apple juice over my skin. I wish I'd gotten some of the woods, etc. (or even the cidery-ness, instead of processed sugary juice) that other posters have had, but my skin loves to take anything sweet and amp it up until it's unbearable. Sad!