Schlafende Baigneuse

[Monster]

Skin musk, white cream, honeycomb, yellow rose, King mandarin, chrysanthemum, golden amber, honeysuckle, and wide-throated yellow monkey-flower accord.

In the imp: Strong hairspray rose

Wet: Wow...really strong....still very much like hairspray or department store perfume. There's a lot going on in this. This is very floral smelling on me.

Dry: A bunch of sour floral notes on my skin. I've gotta wash this off, it's a bit too much for my nose.

Overall: Not for me at all. I can see why a floral lover would adore this but unfortunately for Schlafende Baigneuse, I'm a woodsy resin kinda gal

ETA lab description Edited July 12, 2009 by Monster

[rayvn1]

I'm not a big floral fan, but this is unbelievably beautiful! I credit skin musk with my love of Giant Vulva and Illustrated Woman, so I was eager to try this one. Also for the amber and mandarin notes. This is a brilliantly sweet floral like a ray of sunshine glowing on a summer's garden. I just visited the family farm and the rose note smelled straight out my mom's rose garden that was in high bloom. So beautiful! I don't think Mr. Rayvn will approve, but how can he complain when it makes me feel so damn sexy?!

[Aldercy]

Mm, white cream, skin musk, thin drizzles of honey... with warm orange and rosy honeysuckle. I like rose paired with spice or resin and it usually doesn't do well with light notes, but this is an exception. I don't know if the fact that it's yellow rose makes a difference, but it's very humble, not the big, bully, slightly metallic rose that sometimes likes to attack me.

 

Schlafende Baigneuse is so, so light though. I put on quite a lot, but it's still hard to pick up on. It has a traditional perfume feel to it, but it's very nice.

[misscoldheart]

At first I wasn't sure about this one because I got a bit of citrus that I didn't really appreciate. But now that it's dried, I think i kind of like it!! I'm a musk fan and I really like scents that stay close to the skin, so this one is nice!

I think I need to test it again and see what happens, but there is definite promise here!!

 

 

[Evilynn]

In the vial: sneezy rose

Wet on the skin: a yellow floral

drydown: sneezy florals ontop of musk. I get zero mandarin, zero honeycomb, zero amber and zero cream, unfortunately. It doesn't go to sharp soap on me, which rose normally does, and it doesn't give me a headache like some florals do, but it's definitely all perfume-y floral, no creamy honey or juicy mandarin.

[PixieSkull]

Bottle: lightly musky, sweet, floral... more yellow than white floral.

Skin: Oh, for sweetness, then the powder! Phew for golden amber and honeysuckle together, all sickening and gross for me.

After a little while: There's too much here for me to enjoy this scent. It sounded decent and didn't smell bad in the bottle but it smells like perm neutralizing solution with a tiny bit of the gross setting lotion in there. This is now in my cousin's house, since she can wear amber and sophisticated scents like this. Not all bad, then.

Edited March 8, 2010 by PixieSkull

[donnatron]

Imp: Warm cream and rose and a very light, weird floral scent I've never smelled before. I say weird because... well, it's different. Not unpleasant, just warm and almost borderline citrusy. But a creamy citrus. Bizarre.

 

Wet: This is all cream straight from the imp. Also a bit of honeysuckle.

 

Dry: The rose and honeysuckle dominate with a sweet cream and a swirl of the rest of the florals. This is very light and very sultry. Skin close. It actually reminds me of a toned down Prunella. A sort of more adult and quiet and reserved Prunella. It's a very golden sort of scent--it smells like afternoon sunlight on a lazy weekend afternoon in with your lover. Or, I guess, the scent you would wear on said afternoon.

 

Throw: Mild.

 

Overall: This is lovely. I don't quite think it edges out Prunella, however.

[reconditarmonia]

Wet, I get all flowers (but not rose) and no cream, honey, or amber. Not as warm and yellow as the painting, but I definitely see how it relates - it smells all clean, like I've just got out of the bath. Would that be the skin musk?

 

Never very strong, after a few minutes, it's all but gone. I like the non-aquatic clean smell, but if it doesn't even last as long as the clean smell from an actual shower, there's no real point.

 

Edit: I get a leeeeetle cream as time goes on. But I already have cream scents I like, and this one is very faint.

Edited November 18, 2010 by reconditarmonia

[SophieCedar]

Same from wet to drydown. Yellow rose, chrysanthemum, and skin musk with slight cream and mandarin. Where's the honeycomb? There's a lot going on in here and I was hoping the cream and skin musk were going to be more prominent. I have no idea what wide-throated yellow monkey-flower is supposed to smell like, but it's in here! This is predominantly a floral mix with slight sweet background. Strange because it's one of those scents where I focused in on only the elements that I wanted (skin musk, honeycomb, cream, honeysuckle) and everything else was *blah blah blah* because I was fixating. My fault! I mean, it's still a nice glowy scent, but I need to come back to it with a fresh perspective.

[Gin]

This scent is so perfect for Schlafende Baigneuse. It's light and sweet and creamy. Vaguely floral, vaguely fruity, it's similar to Agape, but a little more grown up. I can't believe there isn't apple or peach blossom in here, it has that sort of feel. Drydown is soft creamy rose-floral and musk; clean but not soapy.

[lookingglass]

Yellow rose! It really smells like yellow rose! Fresh, with green stems, wet and bright. Drying out the creaminess comes out and I smell fresh honeysuckle. I think this is the most realistic floral I have ever smelled. Yes, it reminds me of L'air du Temps, too, but more of a nod to it, not a dupe. This softens out quickly to a light breeze of a pale yellow floral-delicately sweet. Fresh out of a luxe shower, indeed. It's sunny without being tangy or piercing.

[tinyvulture]

It’s been a long time since I’ve tried a honeysuckle blend from the lab, and today I see that we are still not friends. The rose is lovely but, before I can even pick out any other notes, the honeysuckle appears and goes all turpentine on my skin. Boo.

[yakiguri]

At first this starts off as a soapy, generic floral one would expect in a drugstore shampoo, not in one of BPAL's amazing blends. Eventually the florals, cream, and musk in Schlafende Baigneuse calm and meld together into a clean--albeit still a tad soapy--floral. I totally agree with reviewers that said this is a clean floral, as if one had just finished showering with expensive French soap.

 

Unfortunately one of these notes is making my allergies act up, and I'm pretty sure that it's the monkey flower. Apparently the wide-throated yellow variety is native to California, and despite the various countries and states I've lived in, I never developed allergies until I moved to Cali. *grumbles* Off to the swap/sales pile.

Edited April 22, 2012 by thatbrownelf

[KittyHawk]

Katrina van Tassel lovers rejoice! Schlafende is KvT's older, more elegant sister! If you've been looking for another BPAL blend with similar feel, look no further.

 

For being such a light scent, Schlafende is incredibly complex - the soft yellow rose, cream, and honeycomb are the strongest notes, followed by amber and a bevy of yellow florals. This does have a very languid, relaxed feel to it, just as the Renoir painting evokes. The rose stays in check from application through drydown and adds a necessary refinement to the whole blend. I frakking love this. So much.

 

My only complaint is that it's quite faint and doesn't last very long, but it's so pretty that I'm willing to overlook it. I'm so glad I got to try this before the Salon goes away; I'll be upgrading to a bottle ASAP!

[becca_s]

This isn't what I was expecting at all. I was expecting a sweet, creamy floral - but it is not like this on me. I don't get any honey, cream or mandarin. I do get the skin musk combined with slightly soapy florals. It smells like an old fashioned talcum powder, not what I was hoping for at all. I think that it's the honeysuckle that does this, it had a similar effect in Juliet. I really like all of the other notes in this and I can normally wear florals. I tried this on straight out of the mail so perhaps it needs a few days to settle. I am going to try it in again in a few days and fingers crossed I can smell some honey and cream next time.

[Alethia]

Thoughts before testing: This was part of an impulse/panic Salon order right before it closed, but I figured with win notes like skin musk, honeycomb, rose, and cream there was a decent chance of this working.

 

Wet: This starts as a beautiful creamy floral that's so well blended I can't pick out any one note. This is stunning wet.

 

Dry down: As it dries, it morphs from a creamy floral into a high pitched and soapy one. The kind of floral that makes you wrinkle your nose and wonder why anyone wears floral perfume.

 

Dry: Yup, high pitched shrieking soap. Damn.

 

Thoughts before testing: I wanted this to work so badly. I'm really hoping that some aging in a dark cool box will smooth things out and change it from sharp floral soap to the beautiful creamy floral of the wet stage.

 

Edited to add: Thirteen months of aging and this is still high pitched soap on my skin. Damnations.

 

Verdict: Off to the sales.

Edited September 26, 2013 by Alethia

[ModderRhu]

this is beautiful. it smells better than the sum of all its parts. it's a lovely creamy wearable rose with steamy chrysanthemum tea smoothed out by honeycomb. it has good lasting power but stays close to the skin. would probably be great for work.

[doomsday_disco]

I was curious about this one due to its cream, honeycomb, mandarin, and honeysuckle notes. I am not familiar with the monkey-flower accord.

 

In the bottle, I mostly smell the skin musk, yellow rose, and a little bit of cream.

 

Once applied, it's a very high-pitched floral scent on me. The yellow rose is the strongest note, but I'm unable to pick out the other floral notes individually. It has a department store perfume vibe going on throughout wear, although the skin musk and cream do what they can to try to tame the floral notes. I am able to smell some chrysanthemum with the rose after several hours of wear, but I never got a distinct honeysuckle note from this, sadly. While I hoped that the honeycomb would add some sweetness to this, it seems to be MIA on me.

I'd recommend this to those that love straight-up floral scents, as it is mostly floral and skin musk on me with some cream in the background. But there's not enough sweetness here for me.