Gennivre, L’Artiste du Diable

[SmileCat]

Hyson tea leaf, pale mint, sugar cane, orange blossom, lemongrass, and honey.

This took the second or third wearing for me to fall in love with it. See, this is why I test things several times before deciding, no I don't like them. Tea! Lovely green tea with a bit of mint and a background of flowers. It's not a heavy tea like black, but a fresher tea. This smells the way a fabulous summer day with a glass of mint tea feels. Picnic. This smells like a picnic.

[aimeceleste]

Sweet lemon mint tea! Very nice.

 

It has a lot of my favorite smells in it - sugar, mint, tea. This is a hole-in-one for me. I really love it.

[gingersnapp]

Warm herbal tea, slightly sweetened. I can't tell if it's the sugar cane or the honey, but it's only very slight. The tea is light, not heavy or strong. It reminds me of the very pale cup of tea you get at a Chinese restaurant.

 

This is a warm, comforting blend.

[jenleigh]

I passed on a decant of this the first time, but the reviews convinced me, and I found some as a result.

 

This is so pretty in the imp and it's pretty wet, too - mint, lovely tea, just a bit of honey. Unfortunately, within 20 minutes it was totally gone. My skin's not normally one to eat scents whole, but it sucked this up like nothing else I've tried.

 

I do like it a lot, though, and I think at some point this will be one to try in a locket, to help it stay around.

Edited October 6, 2006 by jenleigh

[silver_dollar]

This smells just like minty Orange Pekoe tea to me. It's so nice, and the mint doesn't overpower everything else. This is perfect for fall. My only problem is it fades very quick. Despite that, it's one of my favorites so far.

[theseagrows]

this one smells like sugary light tea with honey. bpal's honey sometimes turns weird on me, and i am afraid it does in this blend as well. when first applied, the scent is intriguing, but as it dries, the honey becomes very prominent on me and a bit sickly sweet. i'll have to try this one again at a later date and give a final verdict, but thus far, this one isn't working for me.

[nightbird]

I've learned over the past few weeks that tea scents just don't smell good on me. this smells like a lovely cup of tea in the bottle, but on me it smells like smoke, and I have no idea where that note came from. the honey note is also very thick and almost cloying on me.

 

I like the artwork for this scent quite a bit. all the CD art is gorgeous!

Edited October 12, 2006 by Nightbird

[Summerpixy]

Lovely sweet tea with just enough sugar to be sweet but not foody. I love this scent and I have a feeling it's going to find its way into heavy rotation. The CD swank that came with it is also quite lovely.

 

If I really get to loving this it might turn out to be my first multiple LE purchase... it's that good.

[Quinara]

In the vial this is so very pretty: tea, mint and light honey with several other subtle notes. On me it's slightly less pretty, or at least less complex, and the tea dominates (my mum thought I smelt like a cup of cold tea... but she's generally pretty scathing about BPAL - not going 'blegh' straight-out is a compliment).

 

I like Gennivre a lot, though it fades quickly to a skin scent. I'm very glad Kourika sold me her decant, and depending on how much I reach for it I might look into a bottle.

[cranberry]

In the imp: honey, mint, sugar and lemon

 

On the skin: honey, mint, tea, with a slight tang of lemons.

 

Dry, the honey fades a bit and the mint, tea and lemons are more prominent. But the honey remains there in the background. There’s a slight edge to this; I can’t tell if it’s the honey or the orange blossom. Maybe a combination of both. Now the honey is back and it’s strong. This is sweet, honeyed tea. I think I must amp honey because that’s all I get. Unfortunately, I only like honey in small doses.

 

This smells like honey candy on me. I’m sure that honey lovers would kill for my skin, as that’s all I get when honey is present.

[supremegoddessofall]

This is a very odd combination of scents. This is familiar somehow, and the overall effect is a mint tea with some honey. It's delicate and yet strong at the same time.

[Medici]

This has been a very difficult scent to nail down. Rather than be redundant and say, "I LOVE IT!" like several other folk here, I've been trying desperately to try and pick off where one note ends and another begins.

 

I can't.

 

It's too damn well blended.

 

Moreover, there's very little evolution of the scent with my chemistry - it stays a sweet, light, almost creamy mint tea for the duration I wear it. I absolutely *adore* Ginnivre for its cool, slightly herbal sweetness.

 

5/5 on Medici's Scale o' Lurrve, without doubt or hesitation

[tempestteapot]

mint orange and honey were the first scents out of the bottle.

 

It reminded me of my aunt. And not in a bad way

 

Dry it's down to orange and tea scent. It's very light and quite nice.

[sophia_helix]

Absolutely perfect for the first ten minutes -- light mint tea with a strong topnote of rich lemongrass, and just a hint of a floral, sugary honey. Then the honey starts taking over and the sweet tea gets stronger, which is OK... but eventually I get a too-sweet, cloying lemon-tea that's very faint and is exactly what happened with Embalming Fluid and Severin, and Dorian, to a degree.

 

I LOVE the wet stage, though, so I'll probably hang onto the imp, at least. But alas, this was the CD I most anticipated.

[moon_lemming]

Mmm, this one is beautiful. It's the first CD scent I've tried, and I'm hoping they're all as gorgeous as this one.

 

Wet, it's a minty herbal tea -- not too strong of a mint, just a perfect swoosh of mint -- and as it dries, a heavy dollop of honey starts to shine through.

 

It actually really makes me crave a cup of tea. It's lovely.

 

I think, although it pains me to say this, that I wouldn't wear it enough to keep it, since I have a hoard of Dorian for my tea needs, but I am so glad I got to try it.

[PilotKitten]

This one is like a brief slideshow of each of the listed notes. At first I get a heavy tea leaf, then a sweet lemongrass, a whiff of a light mint leaf, and finally a tart orange blossom. So strange... they're not blended into each other, they just sort of kick each other out of the way completely. After the drydown though, they mix it up a little bit. Still a slightly heavier minty feel with an orange blossom background. Not sure I liked it at first, but it's growing on me a little bit. Probably too minty for me to wear often though.

[porcelain72]

In the bottle: a light, minty tea scent.

 

Initial application: the mint amps somewhat, and the tea scent behind it is reminiscent for a moment of Dorian. But that fades quickly and becomes its own.

 

Drydown: mostly mint now, but it's not at all an overpowering mint. It is indeed like something you'd get from a cup of herbal tea. Very, very nice.

 

Smiley rating:

[himeykitty]

Hey, my first review!

 

Bottle: Hmm, it's interesting. I smell sweet tea, with a touch of mint and lemongrass. It smells vaguely familiar, which is odd because I don't drink my tea with lemon.

 

Skin: The tea stays, the mint and sugar leave, and the lemongrass really amps. My chemistry makes it a very sharp scent, with little difference between wet and drydown. Not sure about long drydown, because I ended up having to wash it off.

 

I was hoping for more sugar and orange blossom. Alas, I think I shall have to sell/swap this bottle.

[Thaleia]

The first words out of my mouth when I opened the bottle were, “OH, MY GOD!!” So very light and sharp – a perfect cup of sweet mint tea. It starts out very fresh and green, like F5 or Shanghai with added mint, and then sweetens up as Shanghai does with the honeysuckle note, only this time it’s sugar cane and orange blossom. The drydown isn’t as sweet and comforting and second-skin as Shanghai or F5, because the mint keeps it sharp, and while I prefer the aloe note in F5 (and Berenice, come to that), it’s still definitely a great scent.

 

Full drydown: sweet orange blossom, sugar cane, and honey with a backdrop of mint tea. Love.

 

Lucky Macha to have a fantastic scent like this made in her honour.

[Emma2403]

I was so sure I would fall in love with this one. Mint is my absolute favourite note. I'm also a big fan of tea and sugar cane, and I've been known to adore orange blossom. For all those reasons, I nearly ordered a bottle unsniffed… but I was poor so I couldn't.

 

And now I'm glad because on me, it's nothing but black tea… it could as well be black tea single note .

My mother and my best friend swear they smell mint when I wear it but I suspect they only say so to please me. And anyway, I don't get any mint, any sugar, nothing but black tea.

Edited November 5, 2006 by Emma2403

[Toby]

I can't decide whether I like this or not. It's got the tea scent that I love from Shanghai, but fake somehow. Then it softened and sweetened -- I think that's the honey -- and while it smells lovely at this stage, it's also almost non-existant.

 

Disappears almost immediately on my skin.

[Tess]

Ever so slowly I am making my way through my scent backlog and here is one that I was so excited to get when I ordered it! Citrus is my love and the idea of smelling like mint tea with a dash of honey and a hint of lemon just makes me want to dance.

 

In the vial - This isn't the mint I was hoping for... it's less mint tea and more tea with mint, if you get my meaning. There's an herby quality to it, too, and the lemongrass is tart.

 

Wet - Something in here doesn't sit right with me. It has almost a rosemary scent.

 

Drying - The mint note is coming out catnip on me! How utterly odd. I'm not getting any of the sweet notes, which is sad as it would really help this out. The tea has backed off and the lemon is just lingering a touch. It seriously smells almost exactly like catnip bunched together with some lemongrass. I'm surprised my roommate's cat isn't attacking me.

 

Dry (1 hour) - This is dried to something extremely powdery with just the barest hint of tea and mint. Not catnip anymore, just mint. Ah, well.

 

Overall - I'm disappointed, but I was expecting something more peppermint smelling, so it's my own fault.

[Kitrona]

I am in love with this. I forgot what the notes were, so when I got a decant and put it on, I was very pleasantly surprised. Yummy tea with honey and mint.... mmmm....

 

I just wish it would linger a bit more.

[grrrlennyl]

at first: odd. sweet, minty, citrussy, and a lot of other things all rolled into a slightly chaotic, very bright scent.

on: mostly lemongrass and mint, with a hint of sugar care. lovely.

1 hour later: lots of mint and orange blossom. there's also a bit of sweetness to this.

2 hours later: the tea is coming out more now and it smells odd with the orange blossom.

4 hours later: powdery and soft, with an odd note from the orange blossom.

overall: what is it with me and "blossom" scents? they always end up going wrong.

[edenssixthday]

Gennivre l’Artist du Diable - Unfortunately, this blend has several notes in it that just rarely ever work for me: tea, honey, mint and lemongrass. The scent is very light and bright and makes me think of some of Beth’s Asian-inspired blends. The orange blossom gives this blend a touch of a powdery feeling, as orange blossom always does on me, but I’m afraid that’s the only part of the blend I like. None of the other notes work on me and combined together, it smells strikingly like Philosophy’s The Tea Party set, which has mint tea, sugar and lemon. It’s not bad, it’s just not me. The scent has an average level of sillage, and the staying power is moderate.