Helena

[darkeyedfran]

Rose amber, calla lily, night-blooming jasmine, water lily, and white rose.

 

This is way too floral for my tastes, it's pretty much straight lily to my nose, I can't detect any other scent I like it as a scent and I wanted to try out something heavily floral for a change but this is a little too floral.

[Ajila]

In the bottle - A soft yellow rose

 

Wet on me - Soapy rose petals and something green

 

Dry on me - It disappeared quite quickly

 

Overall - A slightly lack-lustre soapy rose

[Pumpkinn]

I will open up by saying I generally cannot work citrus notes. Although I understand there aren’t any listed for Helena, this is as close to citrus fresh for me as it gets.

 

It is a sophisticated, crisp, clean floral perfume. I’m almost tempted to say this reminds me of Haiku from Avon, something my mom would wear once in a while, but it’s been too long for me to know how close the comparison is.

 

Seems like many other reviewers are getting plenty of rose. I tend not to like rose ever at all, but I don’t sense much of it here. I get more lily, if anything. I think. And the jasmine doesn’t have the effect of warm urine as I’ve unfortunately experienced in other fragrances.

 

Helena doesn’t change much from start to finish.

[JuliskaMarie]

In the imp: White rose, jasmine & water lily, held together by a tiny amount of rose amber. A Very light, aquatic floral!

Wet on skin: Oooohhh, this is so pretty! The rose & cala lily are almost not there on me, but the jasmine + water lily combination is GORGEOUS! It reminds me a lot of Oceanus by The Body Shop (one of my favourite perfumes, which sadly is no longer made) & looking up the notes for that (top note is water lily, middle notes include rose & jasmine), this makes sense. It's not exactly the same, but it's close enough that I may have found my Oceanus replacement!

Dry on skin: Water lily & jasmine with a little bit of rose amber. My skin pretty much always eats rose, so it's not surprising that the rose has vanished already. A very pretty aquatic floral! VERY similar to Oceanus on my skin & this makes me so very happy!

After a few hours: Faded & less like Oceanus than before, but still pretty & still close enough that it'll be a decent substitute!

Verdict: Ahhhhh! I love this! I'm going to need a bottle when my imp runs out, because this is probably going to get a lot of wear!

[quickdrawkiddo]

This is way too floral for me. Rose and lily individually have a tendency to turn other notes musty and old-lady-ish on me, and since they're combined here, the effect is very... NOT me. I'm not a classic florals girl. For some reason this reminds me of the old perfume White Shoulders, which I'm not 100% sure I've actually smelled, but this smells like what I always imagined White Shoulders smelling like (although I did look up the notes in White Shoulders and they're actually very similar, so I may be onto something). This is extremely feminine and classic without being either girlish or vampy, so if that sounds like your thing, give this a try. It's not unpleasant, it just doesn't suit me at all.

[Veronica]

Wet, this is all lovely rose, just perfect and not overpowering. As it dries the lily (my death note of this bunch), begins to shriek. It remains well behaved for lily, but the scent is still too white floral and headache inducing.

[freyasfae]

Ah, it's a jessamine, not a jasmine which is why it's softer. Nice, wet spring floral, but ends up drying down into something very perfumey.

[Casablanca]

I got an imp of this on eBay. BPAL seems to have removed this blend from its website instead of showing it as out of stock. Dunno why.

Bottle: Rose and lily.

Wet: More rose and lily. I get no sense of greenery or anything else paired with them: this is a dedicated thing.

Dry: Mostly rose, later some amber. I usually avoid wearing rose, but have to admit this was a pleasant mood-lifter whenever I got a random whiff of it during a meeting this morning. The amber gives this a much-needed non-floral note. I hated a rose-amber fragrance I tried elsewhere, but this is far less objectionable.

Rose isn't very me, but it can improve my mood, so it has value at work. This is nice. But right now it's gone.

[torischroeder9]

In the bottle: Soft rose, a little lily. 

 

On my skin:

 

Wet, it's the same soft rose and lily, with the lily a little more balanced on my skin. On the initial drydown, the roses and lilies find a good balance, though at this stage, they're also slightly soapy. I can also start to detect the night-blooming jasmine as a distinct floral note. As it develops, I get a definite rose main note, with an undercurrent of the lilies, and a subtler still undercurrent of jasmine. I can't detect amber specifically, but it's quite common on me for amber to amp up other notes, and it's quite common on me for rose to be amped, so.

 

This is a very true light, bright floral on me -- particularly so when it's composed of notes that so often don't work on my skin. 

[doomsday_disco]

I like rose. I like lily. Jasmine can be iffy, and I don't typically enjoy rose + resin combos (or florals plus resins, generally).

 

This is mostly about the rose and the lily, and there's some amber mixed in with the rose, too, and it is like that through most of the wear, with the rose being the dominant note. However, it goes sour on me, and I think that might be due to the combo of the rose with the resin or one of the types of rose used in this scent.

 

I'm glad I got a chance to try this, but it just didn't work on me.

[ShadowEtienne]

I was very excited to get a bottle of this to split with my sister. Cala lily is an absolute favorite note, and I'm very fond of water lily and jasmine as well. Roses can be lovely but are more my sister's thing than mine, but I tend to like them as part of a floral blend. Amber is the only thing in this notes list that is hit or miss for me.

 

Once fully dry, a slightly sharp cala lily is the dominant note of this on my skin, pretty closely backed by a fresh waft of jasmine and semisweet slightly aquatic water lily. Rose and a tiny hint of powdery resinous amber are only a background whisper.

 

It does take a bit to get there on my skin though and during the first 15 minutes goes through a very worrying moment of the amber being very loud and too sweet. Fortunately that only lasts a few minutes on it's way to smelling lovely.